A wave of new court rulings is rapidly eroding the legal foundation that has underpinned Telephone Consumer Protection Act do-not-call claims for years.
The traditional framework appeared relatively settled, with consumers holding a clear right to sue after receiving two or more unsolicited marketing calls or texts to a registered do-not-call number.
A recent ruling has now thrown that entire framework into serious doubt, finding there is no cause of action for do-not-call claims whatsoever under the statute.
The reasoning stems from the statutory text of Section 227(c)(5), which grants plaintiffs the right to sue over violations of FCC regulations implemented under that section.
The problem identified by the court is that the relevant section required the FCC to issue do-not-call implementation rules by 1992, yet the Commission did not actually do so until 2003.
Critics of the ruling note it flies in the face of hundreds of decisions that have reached the opposite conclusion over many years of litigation.
Nevertheless, legal observers are watching closely, because if other courts adopt this position it could effectively end TCPA do-not-call claims as a viable legal theory entirely.
On more settled but still significant ground, a majority of courts now hold that SMS text messages are not telephone calls and therefore cannot form the basis of a do-not-call claim.
The case Ankrah v. Streamline Funding, 2026 WL 3027138, decided in the Northern District of Georgia in September 2026, stands as one recent example among a growing number of such rulings.
A separate line of decisions goes further by suggesting the TCPA do-not-call rules do not apply to mobile phones at all, treating them as non-residential lines outside the statute’s scope.
In Michael Anthony v. Brian Marketing Group, Case No. 9:24-cv-80800, a Southern District of Florida court refused to enter a default judgment for the plaintiff, concluding that cell phones do not qualify as residential lines under the relevant provisions.
If that reasoning is widely adopted, do-not-call rights of action would be effectively limited to calls placed to landline telephones, a dramatic narrowing of consumer protections in an era when landlines play a minimal role in everyday communication.
The combined effect of these rulings represents a profound and rapid shift in the TCPA litigation landscape, creating significant uncertainty for both plaintiffs and defendant businesses navigating compliance obligations.