Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

District Court rejects business owners’ Do Not Call Registry TCPA claims

Courts TCPA Do Not Call Registry Autodialer

Courts

On April 16, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted in part and denied in part a telemarketing company’s motion to dismiss, concluding that the plaintiff did not have standing to bring some of his claims under the TCPA. According to the opinion, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the company for various claims under the TCPA, alleging that he received ten calls from the company to a phone number he had listed on the “National Do Not Call Registry” (Registry), nine of which were allegedly placed using an automatic dialing system (autodialer). The plaintiff requested orally, and later in writing, that the company cease calling the number, but the company allegedly continued to do so. The company moved to dismiss the action, arguing that the plaintiff created a business model to “encourage telemarketers to call his cellphone number so that he can later sue the telemarketers under the TCPA,” and therefore, has not suffered an injury-in-fact that the TCPA was designed to protect. The court agreed with the company on two claims related to the Registry, holding that the plaintiff does not have standing to bring claims under the TCPA’s prohibition of contacting numbers on the Registry because the phone was for business use and “business numbers are not permitted to be registered on the [Registry].” The court denied the motion to dismiss as to the remaining TCPA claims and ordered the company to respond.