Nevertheless, The TCPA Battles Will Persist

The Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision on April 1 in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, holding that, to constitute an "automatic telephone dialing system" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), equipment must have the capacity to either (a) store telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator or (b) produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. The Court's narrow interpretation of this provision settles an outstanding circuit split – supporting the Third, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits' interpretation, and rejecting the Second, Sixth and Ninth Circuits' approach.

The key to the Court's interpretation is that numbers must be randomly or sequentially generated. To qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system, equipment must fall into one or both of two categories: