Advertising Law Blog

Is this the beginning of a trend?

A recent pro-defendant Central District of Illinois ruling over unsolicited text messages illustrates a change in the relationship between government agencies and federal courts. In Jones v. Blackstone Medical Services, LLC (decided on July 21, 2025), three consumers sued a Florida company for sending them repeated telemarketing text messages, even though their mobile numbers were on the Do Not Call Registry and they specifically requested to stop receiving the messages. The plaintiffs claimed the messages violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) but the court disagreed.

First, some context for this surprise: the ruling came in the wake of two Supreme Court decisions issued earlier this year. The first one, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, reshapes the extent to which courts are required to defer to the interpretations of government agencies like the FCC. Under Loper, courts are no longer bound to follow FCC interpretations. Just weeks later, in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., the Supreme Court went a bit further, confirming that district court judges must interpret laws (like the TCPA) themselves without deferring to agency views.

That shift proved decisive in Jones. For years, the FCC has taken the position that text messages should be treated the same as robocalls under the TCPA, and district courts were essentially required to defer to that position. But in the wake of the McLaughlin ruling, the Central District of Illinois court was free to reach the opposite conclusion, and it chose to treat text messages differently than robocalls for purposes of Do Not Call claims under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c).

The plaintiffs had relied on a specific part of the TCPA, namely section 227(c), which allows people to sue if they receive more than one unwanted call in a twelve-month period after listing their numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The court decided to exclude text messages from Do No Call requirements, saying the TCPA itself refers only to “telephone calls,” not “text messages.” Thus, the defendant was not responsible for sending text messages to numbers on the Do Not Call list and the motion to dismiss was granted.

Importantly, this ruling doesn’t mean all unsolicited text messages are legal. First of all, other courts are not obligated to follow the Central District of Illinois’ precedent. Second, the Jones decision itself noted that a separate section of the TCPA, the one that regulates calls sent via automatic dialing systems still covers text messages. But because the Jones plaintiffs sued under section 227(c) (Do Not Call) and not section 227(b) (autodialers), the judge dismissed the case.

This decision is a reminder that the TCPA presents a constantly changing legal landscape, choosing the wrong statute can doom even a well-founded complaint.