9th Circuit Reverses Dismissal of TCPA Complaint for Lack of Article III Standing
A 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of an action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for lack of Article III standing and remanded for further proceedings. Plaintiff Kristen Hall alleged defendants Smosh Dot Com…
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and Mythical Entertainment sent five text messages to a cellphone number that she had placed on the national do not call registry and gave to her 13-year-old son. The U.S. District Court for Eastern California decided Hall lacked Article III standing because she failed to allege she was the phone's user or recipient of the text messages. “We now hold that the owner and subscriber of a phone” with a number listed on the DNC registry “has suffered an injury in fact when unsolicited telemarketing calls or texts are sent to the number in putative violation of the TCPA,” said the Friday opinion (docket 22-16216). “The owner and subscriber of the phone suffers a concrete, de facto injury when their right to be free from such communications is violated,” it said. That holds “even if the communications are intended for or solicited by another individual, and even if someone else is using the phone at the time the messages are transmitted,” it said. Since Hall alleges she was the owner and subscriber of a cellphone number on the DNC registry that received unsolicited text messages in violation of the TCPA, “she has stated an injury in fact sufficient to satisfy Article III,” it said.