District of Illinois
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
It is no secret that the Courts are spit to high heaven on the proper definition of automatic telephone dialing system ("ATDS") found within the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. ("TCPA.") And although the FCC is even now considering public comments on how to define the phrase following a remand by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the district courts continue to issue conflict definitions of this all-important statutory phrase.
One district where the meaning of ATDS was seemingly clear, however, was the Northern District of Illinois. Starting with the big Pinkus decision last year every court to look at the issue found that random or sequential number generation was required to constitute ATDS usage. Pinkus v. Sirius Xm Radio, 16 C 10858, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
125043 (N.D. Ill. July 26, 2018)(failure to allege random or sequential number generation fatal to TCPA complaint); Johnson v. Yahoo!, Inc., No. 14-cv-02028 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 29, 2018)(statutory definition of ATDS unambiguously required random or sequential number generation capacity). Folkerts v Seterus, Inc., Case No. 17 c 4171, 2019 U.S. Dist. Lexis 42347 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 15, 2019)(random or sequential number generation required for a system to qualify as an ATDS); Zeidel v. Nat'l Gas & Elec., LLC, 18-cv-06792, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83988 (N.D. Ill. May 17, 2019)