The plaintiff brought an action on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated against the defendant under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) seeking class-wide relief. The TCPA prohibits calls to cellular telephone numbers using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) and/or artificial or prerecorded voice in most circumstances without the called party’s prior express consent. The plaintiff alleged the defendant violated the TCPA by making non-emergency calls to him and members of the proposed class using ATDS without their prior express consent.
“The court observed that expanding the definition of an autodialer to encompass any equipment that merely stores and dials telephone numbers would take a chainsaw to the nuanced problems of robocalling when Congress meant to use a scalpel.”