Key TCPA cases

Supreme Court

Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC, 565 U.S. 368 (2012)

Federal district courts have federal-question jurisdiction over private TCPA claims. The statute's reference to state courts gives a permissive, not exclusive, forum.

Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153 (2016)

An unaccepted offer of judgment for full individual relief does not moot a named plaintiff's claim or the putative class action. The case arose from recruiting texts sent by a contractor for the Navy.

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016)

Not a TCPA case, but the standing framework every TCPA plaintiff must satisfy: a concrete injury in fact, not a bare procedural violation. Courts have generally found unwanted calls and texts concrete.

Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc., 591 U.S. 610 (2020)

The 2015 exception for calls collecting government-backed debt was a content-based speech restriction that failed strict scrutiny. The Court severed the exception and left the robocall restriction intact.

Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021)

An automatic telephone dialing system must have the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to store or produce telephone numbers. List-based dialing without such a generator is outside the definition.

McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp. (2025)

In a private TCPA enforcement action, a district court is not bound by the FCC's interpretation of the statute and must determine its meaning independently, giving the agency's view appropriate respect. The case involved a 2019 FCC ruling that online fax services are not "telephone facsimile machines".

Autodialers in the circuits

ACA International v. FCC, 885 F.3d 687 (D.C. Cir. 2018)

Set aside the FCC's 2015 interpretation of "capacity" and its treatment of reassigned numbers as arbitrary and capricious.

Marks v. Crunch San Diego, LLC, 904 F.3d 1041 (9th Cir. 2018)

Read the ATDS definition to include equipment that stores numbers and dials them automatically. Abrogated by Duguid.

Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., 950 F.3d 458 (7th Cir. 2020)

Read the random or sequential generator clause as modifying both "store" and "produce", excluding list-based systems. The reading Duguid adopted.

Consent and revocation

Osorio v. State Farm Bank, F.S.B., 746 F.3d 1242 (11th Cir. 2014)

Consent under the TCPA may be revoked orally. The court applied common-law consent principles in the absence of a statutory rule.

Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Group, LLC, 847 F.3d 1037 (9th Cir. 2017)

A person who gives a phone number on a gym membership application consents to texts related to that membership; unwanted texts are a concrete injury for standing; the consent was not revoked merely by cancelling the membership.

Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025)

Vacated the FCC's one-to-one consent rule for lead generators. The Commission may not impose consent requirements beyond the statute's "prior express consent".

Text messages

Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 569 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. 2009)

A text message is a "call" under § 227(b)(1)(A). Also held that consent given to one company's "affiliates and brands" did not extend to an unrelated company.

Vicarious liability

In re Joint Petition filed by Dish Network, LLC, 28 FCC Rcd 6574 (2013)

A seller is not directly liable for calls physically placed by a third party, but may be vicariously liable under federal common-law agency principles: actual authority, apparent authority, or ratification. This FCC declaratory ruling is the foundation for seller liability for vendor and lead-generator calls, and courts have generally followed it.

Krakauer v. Dish Network, L.L.C., 925 F.3d 643 (4th Cir. 2019)

Affirmed a class judgment against Dish for do-not-call violations by a retailer acting as its agent, including the willfulness finding and trebling. Confirms that the agency route to liability works in a certified class.

Do-not-call

Krakauer, above, is the leading appellate decision on registry claims under § 227(c)(5). It confirms that a person who has registered a number and received more than one call within 12 months has a claim, that standing is satisfied by the calls themselves, and that a seller answers for calls made on its behalf.

FCC rulings and their review

The FCC's orders are reviewed in the courts of appeals under the Hobbs Act, as ACA International and Insurance Marketing Coalition were. Until 2025, most courts treated unreviewed FCC interpretations as binding in private cases. After McLaughlin, district courts decide the statute's meaning for themselves, which means FCC rulings such as the 2024 AI-voice ruling and the 2022 ringless voicemail ruling are persuasive authority that a defendant can contest. The rules at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 remain regulations with the force of law unless set aside.