Thursday, December 10, 2020
On Tuesday, December 8, 2020, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument on the question of what type of dialing equipment qualifies as an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The Court granted certiorari to resolve a split among the federal circuit courts of appeals that had construed the meaning of the term. The Ninth Circuit ruling on review had reaffirmed a broad definition of ATDS, but other recent decisions had construed the term more narrowly.
The plain language of the TCPA states that an ATDS is “equipment which has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and to dial such numbers.” 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(1). After the D.C. Circuit abrogated the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rulings construing that language,