On June 17, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Brown-Daub Chevrolet of Nazareth\u2019s motion to dismiss a putative class action alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act\u2019s (TCPA) National Do Not Call Registry (DNCR) provisions. In Pero v. Brown-Daub Chevrolet of Nazareth (E.D. Pa. June 17, 2026), the court considered whether a text message is a \u201ctelephone call\u201d under Section 227(c) of the TCPA, and concluded that it is.<\/p>\n
The TCPA restricts certain telemarketing communications and, through Section 227(c), provides a private right of action to a person who receives more than one prohibited telephone call within a 12-month period. The plaintiff alleged that she registered her number on the DNCR in 2021, gave the dealership her number in October 2024 to receive truck sales information, later opted out of texts, and then received six unwanted texts between January 8 and March 28, 2025.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s analysis is notable in the current environment. The Supreme Court recognized that Chevron deference has been abolished and that courts must exercise independent judgment rather than defer automatically to agency interpretations. At the same time, it emphasized that agency interpretations may still deserve respect as the product of \u201ca body of experience and informed judgment,\u201d particularly where Congress delegated implementation authority to the FCC.<\/p>\n
Turning to the statutory text, the court focused on Section 227(a)(4), which defines \u201ctelephone solicitation\u201d as the initiation of a \u201ctelephone call or message\u201d for telemarketing purposes. Although texts did not exist when Congress enacted the TCPA, the court found that Congress \u201cintended to prohibit more than solicitations by telephone\u201d because it also used the phrase \u201cby message.\u201d Applying ordinary meaning, the court concluded that a text message is \u201ca communication (message) transmitted by a telephone,\u201d and therefore falls within the statute.<\/p>\n
The court also gave \u201cconsiderable weight\u201d to the FCC\u2019s interpretation and noted the FCC\u2019s 2024 clarification that DNCR protections extend to text messages. Considering the statutory language, FCC rules, and the \u201coverwhelming majority of courts,\u201d the court held that texts are calls under Section 227(c). For companies using SMS campaigns, they should treat texts to DNCR-listed numbers as regulated telemarketing contacts, confirm the required consent, and make opt-outs durable across systems and personnel. The decision also suggests that post-Loper Bright challenges to FCC TCPA interpretations may face headwinds where the agency\u2019s position aligns with statutory text and the weight of judicial authority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 17, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Brown-Daub Chevrolet of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-230189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}