Court Rules on Autodialer Under TCPA Rules
November 06, 2014
By Rory J. Thompson, Web Editor
Companies that use a third-party Web-based platform to text customers or potential customers are not in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA.
That’s the ruling from a California federal court that recently heard a case involving a San Diego gym. In the case, Marks v. Crunch San Diego, LLC, a third-party Web-based platform used by a health club to send text messages to its members was not an “automated telephone dialing system” for purposes of TCPA, according to a release by law firm Ballard Spahr LLC.
“The facts showed that phone numbers could only be inputted into the platform in one of three scenarios: when the defendant or another authorized person manually uploaded a number, an individual responded via text message to the defendant’s marketing campaign, or an individual manually inputted the number on a consent form through the defendant’s website that interfaced with the platform,” Ballard Spahr said. “To have the platform send a text message, the defendant needed to select the desired number, generate the message to be sent, and select a date for the message to be sent.”
The court found that the platform did not constitute an autodialer as defined by the TCPA because it lacked a random or sequential number generator.
“The court specifically rejected the Federal Communication Commission’s broad reading of the autodialer definition, under which any equipment with the capacity to store or produce numbers and dial them without human intervention could be an autodialer, regardless of how the numbers called were generated,” the law firm noted.
The ruling is good news for call centers or others unsure of where they stand in regards to TCPA, and offers more clear guidelines for those wishing to auto-dial prospective customers. In anticipation of other, similar cases, Ballard Spahr has created a TCPA Task Force, comprised of regulatory attorneys and litigators, to assist clients in navigating the complex issues that arise under the TCPA.
Edited by Maurice Nagle