Another district court dismisses TCPA action for lack of jurisdiction

Courts TCPA U.S. Supreme Court Robocalls Class Action Subject Matter Jurisdiction

On October 29, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio dismissed a TCPA action against an energy service company and “ten John Doe corporations” (collectively, defendants), concluding that the court lacked jurisdiction over cases involving unconstitutional laws. According to the opinion, the plaintiff filed the putative class action against the defendants alleging the companies violated the TCPA by placing pre-recorded calls to the plaintiff’s cell phone without consent. While the action was pending, on July 6, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants Inc. (AAPC) that the government-debt exception in Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the TCPA is an unconstitutional content-based speech restriction (covered by InfoBytes here). The defendants moved to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and the court agreed. Specifically, the court agreed with the defendants that the severance of Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) must be applied prospectively, thus, the statute can only be applied to robocalls made after July 6 and prior to 2015 (when the now unconstitutional government-debt exception in Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) was enacted). Because “the statute at issue was unconstitutional at the time of the alleged violations,” the court concluded it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the matter and dismissed the action.

As previously covered by InfoBytes, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana was the first known court to dismiss a TCPA action based on lack of jurisdiction over calls occurring after the exception’s enactment but prior to the Supreme Court’s decision on July 6.