Two U.S. Senators, one a Republican and the other a Democrat, have sent a letter to FCC Chairman Pai to encourage the FCC to proceed with a rulemaking to create a database of reassigned telephone numbers.

The TCPA’s autodialed call prohibition excepts calls made “with the prior express consent of the called party.”  In its March 2018 decision in ACA International v. FCC, the D.C. Circuit set aside the FCC’s one-call safe harbor as well as its interpretation that the “called party” means the current subscriber rather than the intended recipient.

In April 2018, the FCC published a notice in the Federal Register seeking comment on a variety of issues relating to the creation of a reassigned numbers database, including how the ACA decision impacts its ability to create a safe harbor from TCPA liability for callers who voluntarily use such a database.

In their letter, the Senators discuss various features that should be part of a database, such as comprehensiveness, accuracy, and accessibility.  They also suggest that a safe harbor from TCPA liability for making calls to reassigned numbers may be appropriate where (1) the caller took all reasonable steps to properly use a reassigned numbers database, (2) the call to the reassigned number resulted from inaccurate information in the database, (3) the caller had the consent of the call’s intended recipient, and (4) the caller took appropriate steps to stop calling the reassigned number and reported the inaccuracy.