2nd Circuit: Unsolicited text messages are sufficient injury under TCPA

Courts TCPA Appellate Second Circuit Spokeo Privacy/Cyber Risk & Data Security Class Action

On April 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held that the receipt of unsolicited text messages, absent any additional injury, is sufficient to demonstrate injury-in-fact in a TCPA class action. According to the opinion, consumers filed a class action lawsuit against a retail store for sending unsolicited text messages in violation of the TCPA. The district court approved a settlement between the parties and certified the class despite various objections, including one from a third-party defendant who argued the consumers lacked standing under the 2016 Supreme Court opinion Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, because “they alleged only a bare statutory violation and statutory damages cannot substitute for concrete harm.”

On appeal, the appellate court first rejected the third-party defendant’s standing to appeal the district court’s decision because it had not been “‘formally strip[ped]’ of any claim or defense, it lacks standing to pursue its appeal” in the underlying class action. Notwithstanding the lack of standing by the third-party defendant, the appellate court then went on to address the jurisdictional standing issues raised against the consumers. The court reasoned that, even though the third party that raised the jurisdictional question had been dismissed, the court had an “independent obligation to satisfy [itself] of the jurisdiction” of the appellate and district court. The appellate court concluded that the consumers sufficiently alleged “nuisance and privacy invasion” by the unsolicited text messages, which “are the very harms with which Congress was concerned when enacting the TCPA.” Because the harms identified are “of the same character as harms remediable by traditional causes of action,” the appellate court held the consumers sufficiently demonstrated injury-in-fact as required by Article III.