On April 1, 2021, in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, the Supreme Court clarified what constitutes an “automatic telephone dialing system”—commonly referred to as an “autodialer”—under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). In so doing, the high court adopted the narrower definition of that term previously embraced by the Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits and rejected a broader definition of “autodialer” used in the Second, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits. (We previously discussed this circuit split in our February and August issues last year.) The narrower definition will limit the scope of the devices—and therefore the scope of calls and text messages—that fall within the TCPA’s ambit.

• Facebook allows a user to receive a text message when someone attempts to access his or her account on a new device or browser. In 2014, Noah Duguid received several such text messages, though he never had a Facebook account and had never given Facebook his phone number. After he was unable to stop the text messages, Duguid brought a putative class action against Facebook alleging that it violated the TCPA by automatically sending text messages to stored phone numbers each time the account associated with a stored number was accessed on a new device or browser.
• The TCPA imposes restrictions on making calls and sending text messages using an autodialer. An autodialer is defined by the statute as “equipment which has the capacity—(A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” In moving to dismiss Duguid’s complaint, Facebook argued that the texts Duguid received were not sent by an autodialer because the system used to send those texts neither stored nor produced phone numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Duguid, for his part, argued that the phrase “using a random or sequential number generator” only modified “produce,” such that any system that stored and automatically dialed telephone numbers fell within the TCPA’s definition of an autodialer, regardless of whether that system used a random or sequential number generator.
• The district court agreed with Facebook and dismissed Duguid’s complaint. The Ninth Circuit reversed, finding that “Duguid had stated a claim under the TCPA by alleging that Facebook’s notification system automatically dialed stored numbers,” since an autodialer “need only have the capacity to ‘store numbers to be called’ and ‘to dial such numbers automatically.’”
• In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court reversed. It held that for equipment to qualify as an autodialer, it must “in all cases, whether storing or producing numbers to be called, . . . use a random or sequential number generator.” The Court arrived at this holding primarily by reading the statutory text closely and applying canons of statutory construction and rules of grammar. The Court reasoned that its reading of the TCPA was the only logical one because “[e]xpanding the definition of an autodialer to encompass any equipment that merely stores and dials telephone numbers,” as Duguid sought to do, “would take a chainsaw to the[] nuanced problems” the TCPA was designed to address “when Congress meant to use a scalpel.” In so finding, the Court pointed out that Duguid’s definition of an autodialer “would capture virtually all modern cell phones,” and Congress could not have intended such a definition. And since the system Facebook used did not store or produce phone numbers using a random or sequential number generator, Duguid’s claim under the TCPA failed as a matter of law. Finally, the Court rejected Duguid’s argument that adopting the narrower definition of autodialer would unleash a “torrent of robocalls” because a random or sequential number generator was a “senescent technology” that would soon be outdated. Stating that Duguid’s “quarrel is with Congress,” the Court concluded that such policy concerns provided “no justification for eschewing the best reading of” the TCPA and that it could not update the Act to account for modern technology.
• The Supreme Court’s decision in Duguid significantly limits the TCPA’s scope by limiting the devices—and, by extension, calls and texts—that are subject to the TCPA’s prohibitions. But the TCPA is not toothless in Duguid’s wake. Other provisions regulating the use of artificial or prerecorded voice calls and calls to numbers that are registered on the Do Not Call Registry continue to limit the scope of permissible outbound communications. And several state laws also continue to regulate calls made via autodialers. Many of these laws have their own statutory definition of autodialers and may not follow the Supreme Court’s ruling.
• Read the Court’s full opinion in Duguid here.