Statement a Company Used an “Autodialer” Not Sufficient To Win TCPA Suit Appellate Court Holds

Published on August 31, 2023 at 3:00 pm

Eric Troutman

Attorney at Law at Troutman Amin

Editor's note: This article is provided through a partnership between insideARM and Troutman Amin, which provides a steady stream of timely, insightful and entertaining takes on TCPAWorld.com of the ever-evolving, never-a-dull-moment Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The Troutman Firm—and all insideARM articles—are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved 

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In Guthrie v. PHH Mortgage, Case No. 22-1248 (4th Cir. Aug. 18, 2023) an Appellate court concluded that the mere fact a business’ call center agent told a consumer an “autodialer” was used to make a call was not sufficient to win a TCPA case.

The Defendant had allegedly placed collection calls to the Plaintiff without express consent using an autodialer. The Defendant moved for summary judgment arguing that–after Facebook–its system could not be treated as an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS).

The Plaintiff failed to gather evidence regarding the capabilities of the dialer–most importantly, whether it could store or produce numbers using a Random Or Sequential Number Generator (ROSNG)–and, instead, opposed the motion only with a statement from a rep that the calls had been made by an autodialer.

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