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The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on Facebook v. Duguid and upheld the narrow statutory definition of “automatic telephone dialing system” in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). This ruling has a major impact on potential litigation regarding outreach to members and “robocall” legislation that is being considered by the Maine Legislature.
The court voted 9-0 in favor of Facebook, reversing the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court. The Supreme Court held that such a system only qualifies if it uses a random or sequential number generator. Justice Sotomayer wrote that “expanding the definition of an autodialer to encompass any equipment that merely stores, and dials telephone numbers would take a chainsaw to these nuanced problems when Congress meant to use a scalpel.”
This week, the League testified on a bill that would require anyone utilizing an automatic dialing system to register their information with the state. The testimony urged the committee to consider the holding of the court when drafting their decision on this legislation.
The Maine statute relating to automatic dialing systems is slightly different than that of TCPA and is more restrictive than the federal law. One important compliance aspect credit unions should consider is to obtain express consent prior to pushing through a message or call to a member. Though this permission can be oral or written, written permission would hold up better when questioned. For best practices, credit unions should ensure that they have a system by which a member can be added and removed from a telephone contact list.