Northern District of Illinois finds random or sequential number generation is required for device to be an autodialer as industry awaits decision in Seventh Circuit appeal on the matter.
9/13/2019 9:00
Precedent from the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in ACA International v. FCC continues to surface as lower courts consider Telephone Consumer Protection Act cases and the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) or autodialer.
Most recently, funds from ACA International’s Industry Advancement Fund helped provide amicus support in a Seventh Circuit appeal—the outcome of which will likely reverberate around the country.
In Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., the plaintiff, on behalf of a nationwide class, sued AT&T alleging that AT&T violated the TCPA by using an autodialer to request that customers respond to customer-service related surveys via text message, ACA previously reported.
The parties cross-moved for summary judgment disagreeing over the proper interpretation of the definition for the statutory term “automatic telephone dialing system.”
The district court in Gadelhak granted AT&T’s motion and denied Gadelhak’s motion. In its memorandum and opinion, the district court rejected Gadelhak’s broad interpretation of an “automatic telephone dialing system” concluding that predictive-dialing devices that lack the capacity to generate numbers either randomly or sequentially, and instead only dial numbers from a predetermined list, do not meet the statutory definition of ATDS.
If the Seventh Circuit affirms the district court’s decision, there will be a true circuit split on what qualifies as an “automatic telephone dialing system” pursuant to the statutory definition and paving the way for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, district courts across the country continue to grapple with the issue. Most recently, yet another district court in the Northern District of Illinois opined on this outstanding “what constitutes an ATDS” issue.
Nicole Su, associate at Womble Bond Dickinson, reports in a blog post that the Northern District of Illinois has again ruled “that random or sequential number generation is required for a device to meet the legal definition of an ATDS.”
In the case, Smith v. Premier Dermatology, Su writes, “the Court held that “an ATDS is a device that (1) stores or produces telephone numbers that (2) were randomly or sequentially generated and (3) dials them automatically.”
The court reviewed the decision in ACA International v. FCC and its impact on subsequent TCPA cases that focused on the definition of autodialer before concluding, according to the blog post, that an “ATDS requires random or sequential number generation” to fall within the ambit of the TCPA.
Like the Gadelhak case, the Northern District of Illinois strayed from the precedent in Marks v. Crunch San Diego LLC.
“The court found that the plain meaning of the statutory language defines ‘an ATDS as a device that is capable of using randomly or sequentially generated numbers,’” Su reports. “The court also noted that it is the ‘present capacity,’ not the ‘potential capacity’ of the device that matters. As such, the court held that because the defendant’s system did not have the present capacity to randomly or sequentially generate numbers to dial, it did not qualify as an ATDS.”
Read more in Su’s article here.
Related Content from ACA International:
Are We Getting Closer to Solving the Autodialer Disagreement? (This content is available for members only.)