Marks v. Crunch San Diego, LLC, No. 14-56834 (9th Cir. 2018)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment to Crunch Fitness on plaintiff's claim that three text messages he received from Crunch violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The panel held, in light of the DC Circuit's recent opinion in ACA International v. Federal Communications Commission, 885 F.3d 687 (D.C. Cir. 2018), and based on the panel's own review of the TCPA, that the statutory definition of automatic text messaging system includes a device that stores telephone numbers (ATDS) to be called, whether or not those numbers have been generated by a random or sequential number generator. Because the district court did not have the benefit of ACA International or the panel's construction of the definition of ATDS, the panel vacated and remanded for further proceedings.
Court Description: Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The panel vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendant on a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which places restrictions on the use of automated telephone equipment. The plaintiff alleged that three text messages that he received from the defendant violated the TCPA. The district court held that the automatic text messaging system that had sent the messages was not an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”) under the TCPA because it lacked the present or potential capacity “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator.” After the district court ruled, the D.C. Circuit issued its opinion in ACA Int’l v. Fed. Comm’cns Comm’n, 885 F.3d 687 (D.C. Cir. 2018), invalidating the FCC’s interpretation of questions raised by the statutory definition of an ATDS. The panel held that, in light of ACA Int’l, and based on its own review of the TCPA, the statutory definition of an ATDS includes a device that stores telephone numbers to be called, whether or not those numbers have been generated by a random or sequential number generator. The panel remanded the case for further proceedings. MARKS V. CRUNCH SAN DIEGO 3