SCOTUS Unanimously Sides With Facebook on Narrow Definition of ATDS

The Supreme Court sided with Facebook in a case that could narrow the number of lawsuits filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The court reversed and remanded an earlier decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had found that any device that stores and automatically dials phone numbers can be considered an automatic telephone dialing system under the TCPA. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a united high court in the long-awaited decision in Facebook v. Duguid.

“To qualify as an ‘automatic telephone dialing system’ … a device must have the capacity either to store a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator, or to produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator,” SCOTUS ruled. Justice Samuel Alito issued a concurring opinion.

Facebook didn't comment right away, and nor did lawyers who have represented Duguid.

Also Thursday morning, the court ruled 9-0 in favor of the FCC on a media ownership case. Our bulletin on that ruling is here.