Topic: litigation

McLaughlin and Loper Bright Lead to Decision That TCPA Does Not Apply to Texts

A federal court recently dismissed Do-Not-Call claims after finding that, “based on a plain reading of the TCPA and its implementing regulations,” 47 U.S.C. § 227(c) “does not apply to text messages.” Jones v. Blackstone Med. Servs., LLC, No. 1:24-cv-01074, 2025 WL 2042764 (C.D. Ill. July 21, 2025).

In Jones, the plaintiffs alleged that they had received telemarketing texts about the defendant’s home sleep tests, despite their having placed their numbers on the National Do-Not-Call Registry and/or asking to be placed on the defendant’s Do-Not Call list. (Although they also made passing references to “calls” as well as “texts,” the court found that those allegations were neither well pleaded nor the crux of the claim.) They filed suit under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), which concerns violations of Do-Not-Call rules.

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Commissioner O’Reilly Calls for FCC Action on Backlog of Petitions

In a March 25, 2014 blog post titled “TCPA: It is Time to Provide Clarity,” Commissioner O’Reilly recognized the pressing need for clarity and called for the FCC to act “as soon as possible.” (Read entire post on the Official FCC Blog here).  Commissioner O’Reilly’s comments on the past year’s dramatic increase in TCPA litigation and the significant inventory of pending petitions echoes the concerns raised by many petitioners and highlights the fact that fear of litigation is discouraging businesses from offering communications services to consumers. (Prior blog posts addressing a number of the individual petitions filed before the FCC can be found here, here, and here.)  As a result, Commissioner O’Reilly points out, consumers are not receiving the “notifications and offers that they want and expect.”  This outcome is inconsistent with the balance “between protecting consumers from unwanted communications and enabling legitimate businesses to reach out to consumers that wish to be contacted” that Congress sought to achieve through the TCPA, and requires the FCC to “take a hard look at its own precedent” and “tackl[e] this backlog in a comprehensive manner.”

Two days after Commissioner O’Reilly’s remarks, the FCC granted in part two petitions for expedited declaratory ruling. (The FCC’s March 27, 2014 rulings are available here and here.)  The Commissioner’s blog post, in conjunction with the FCC’s recent rulings, may lend additional support to staying ongoing litigation proceedings pending agency action under the primary jurisdiction doctrine, as the Southern District of Texas and the Eastern District of California have already done.  (See our posts covering these decisions here and here.)