Eleventh Circuit Splits from Ninth Circuit on Text Message-Based TCPA Claims

摘要

In Salcedo v. Hanna, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 ("TCPA") plaintiff lacked standing to pursue a claim based on the alleged receipt of a single, unsolicited text message. The case concerned a text message that plain-tiff John Salcedo allegedly received from his former attorney Alex Hanna advertising a discount on legal services. Salcedo claimed he had standing because receiving the text message caused him to waste time, made him and his cell phone "unavailable for otherwise legitimate pursuits," and "resulted in an invasion of [his] privacy and right to enjoy the full utility of his cellular device." The Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that these allegations "facially appear[] to state a cause of action under the TCPA" but held that they did "not support [a] finding [of a] concrete injury." In reaching this conclusion, the court followed Spokeo's instructions to look to history and the judgment of Congress and concluded that Salcedo's alleged harms—which it characterized as "a brief, inconsequential annoyance"—fell short of the harms identified by Congress when it enacted the TCPA and differed in both degree and kind from the harms recognized at common law.