In a ruling that is certain to impact where consumers can bring private lawsuits against telemarketing companies, the Supreme Court of the United States recently decided that claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) may be brought in federal district courts.
The TCPA outlaws the use of automatic telephone dialing systems or prerecorded or artificial voice messages without the express consent of the called party. In addition, the TCPA bans unsolicited calls to residential telephone lines or advertisements to fax machines. The TCPA also prohibits engaging two or more of a business’ telephone lines simultaneously and the manipulation of caller-identification.
For the last decade, federal courts around the nation have been split over the question whether Congress had granted state courts exclusive jurisdiction over private actions under the TCPA. That question is now resolved.
In Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC, 565 U.S. __ (2012), a Florida resident sued a financial services company in federal court, alleging that a debt collector had violated the federal TCPA by calling his cell phone without his consent. The trial court dismissed the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds and the federal appellate court affirmed that decision. But, the U.S. Supreme Court has now reversed that decision.
“We find no convincing reason to read into the TCPA’s permissive grant of jurisdiction to state courts any barrier to the U.S. district courts’ exercise of the general federal-question jurisdiction they have possessed since 1875,” Justice Ginsberg wrote for a unanimous court. “We hold, therefore, that federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over private suite arising under the TCPA.”
Author(s): Timothy M. Ravich
