Third Circuit Court of Appeals Tosses ATDS TCPA Case Against NRCC

Interesting one for you here.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals tossed a TCPA SMS ATDS case against the National Republican Congressional Committee last week– even though it didn’t seem to want to.

In Michel Anthony v. NRCC, 2025 WL 2741798 (3rd Cir. Sept, 26, 2025) the court felt bound to follow an earlier panel’s Panzarella decision, even though the Supreme Court may have suggested the law was on Anthony’s side:

Anthony contests this conclusion based on Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395 (2021). That case concerned the definition of the term ‘automatic telephone dialing system,’ which is a necessary component of the use-of-an-automatic-telephone-dialing system element. Id. at 400. The Supreme Court defined such a system as follows:

To qualify as an ‘automatic telephone dialing system,’ a device must have the capacity either to store a telephone number using a random or sequential generator or to produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator.

From that passage, Anthony argues, as has at least one other federal judge, 2 that random or sequential number generation is not a necessary element of a TCPA claim. The problem for Anthony is that after the Facebook decision, this Court in Panzarella interpreted the use-of-an-automatic-telephone-dialing-system element as requiring the random or sequential generation of a list of phone numbers. Panzarella, 37 F.4th at 876, 882. Thus, by force of precedent, Anthony’s counterargument is unsuccessful. See 3d Cir. I.O.P. 9.1 (requiring en banc hearing to overrule a precedential opinion).

I’m not sure the appellate court really articulated the issues pristinely here– the complaint actually did allege the system had the ability to use a generator it just didn’t allege the USE of a such a generator, and that is the real issue the court was deciding.

Still the fact the panel seemed “force[d]” to rule in Anthony’s favor shows there is some momentum toward reviving these ATDS cases–so watch out!