After spawning hundreds of class actions over the alleged use of auto-dialed phone calls and text messages, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has finally made its way to the United States Supreme Court. Last month, the Supreme Court ruled in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC), 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020) that an exception to the TCPA’s automated call restriction—for calls made to collect government debts—violated the First Amendment. While this ruling may primarily impact lenders and agencies that service government loans, SCOTUS will be taking up a more significant TCPA case this fall. Specifically, in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, the Court will finally resolve a matter that has split the lower circuits – whether an Automated Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) under the TCPA requires random or sequential number generation.
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