TCPA Lawsuits: Who Files Them and How to Avoid One

Almost every TCPA lawsuit starts the same way: a call or text went to a number that should not have been dialled, to someone who either did not consent, was on the Do Not Call Registry, or makes a living from exactly that mistake. Understanding which of the statute's two private claims a suit is built on tells you most of what you need to know about avoiding one.

The two claims a TCPA suit is built on

There is no cap on the total, and a plaintiff does not have to prove any loss. States add their own statutes on top: Florida's mini-TCPA carries its own $500 claim and, unlike the federal statute, makes the loser pay the winner's attorney fees. State mini-TCPA laws covers the others.

Who files them

• Ordinary consumers, usually after repeated calls they asked to stop, or texts they never agreed to.
• Class actions. Statutory damages multiply by call and by person, so a campaign that reached thousands of numbers without valid consent can be pleaded as one case on behalf of all of them. It is where the exposure is largest.
• Serial filers. A small population files TCPA claims repeatedly, as a source of income. Their numbers are real, active mobiles, so they pass every validity and line-type check. What identifies them is the court record, which is what a TCPA litigator database is built from.
• State attorneys general, under § 227(g), usually against high-volume operations.

What changed in 2021-2026

The statute has not changed, but the courts' reading of it has, several times, and not all in the same direction. Four rulings matter to anyone reading older advice:

• Facebook v. Duguid (Supreme Court, April 2021) narrowed "autodialer" to equipment with the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator.
• McLaughlin Chiropractic v. McKesson (Supreme Court, June 2025) held that a district court "is not bound by the FCC's interpretation of the TCPA". FCC orders now persuade; they do not bind.
• Bradford v. Sovereign Pest Control (Fifth Circuit, February 2026), relying on McLaughlin, held that the statute asks only for prior express consent, oral or written, and rejected the FCC's requirement of written consent for prerecorded telemarketing calls to cell phones. It binds courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi only; the FCC's rule is still in the regulations everywhere else.
• Steidinger v. Blackstone (Seventh Circuit, July 2026) held that the Do Not Call claim in § 227(c)(5) does not reach text messages. At least one district court elsewhere has held that it does.

The TCPA statute of limitations

The TCPA sets no deadline of its own, so courts apply the federal four-year catch-all for civil claims, 28 U.S.C. § 1658(a); the Second Circuit held that in Giovanniello v. ALM Media (2013). That window is why the records that answer a claim -- the consent, the opt-out history, the scrub results -- are worth keeping for at least four years after the last call they cover. A list you scrubbed three years ago can still be the list a plaintiff asks about.

How to avoid one

Every control below answers one of the claims above. None of them is optional for a team calling or texting at volume.

1. Consent you can produce. The FCC's rule, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(2), requires prior express written consent for telemarketing calls made to cell phones with an autodialer or a prerecorded voice. Keep the record, with the date and the number it covers, for at least four years.
2. Scrub the Do Not Call Registry. § 227(c)(5) gives a caller an affirmative defence if it "has established and implemented, with due care, reasonable practices and procedures to effectively prevent telephone solicitations in violation of the regulations". A documented, regular scrub is the core of that defence. The Do Not Call Registry covers the schedule and who needs a SAN.
3. Honour opt-outs fast. The FCC now requires revocations to be honoured within ten business days. A call after someone said stop is the easiest claim a plaintiff ever pleads.
4. Check for reassigned numbers. Consent belongs to the person, not the number. Querying the FCC's Reassigned Numbers Database before calling gives a safe harbour under § 64.1200(m) if it wrongly answers "no".
5. Call inside the hours. No solicitation before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the called party's location (§ 64.1200(c)(1)), and several states are stricter: see telemarketing calling hours by state.
6. Know the line type. The consent rules for cell phones and landlines are different clauses of § 227(b). A landline or cell phone lookup tells you which rule each number falls under.
7. Remove known litigators. None of the controls above identifies the people who sue for a living, because their numbers are valid, active and often properly consented. A litigator scrub removes them before the dialler runs.

What the last one does not do is make a call lawful. A litigator scrub lowers who is likely to sue; it does not replace consent or a Do Not Call scrub. NumberBroom adds a federal Do Not Call Registry check to a signed-in paid scrub, under your own FTC subscription (SAN), included free on lists of up to 1,000 numbers; state lists, your internal list and the 31-day schedule stay yours.

Got a TCPA demand letter?

A demand letter asks you to pay a claim before anyone files it. It is not a lawsuit: in federal court, the clock starts when you are served with a complaint, and the answer is due 21 days after that (Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(a)(1)(A)(i)). The TCPA itself sets no deadline for answering a letter, but a state law cited beside it can. In Massachusetts, a business that makes a reasonable written settlement offer within 30 days of a chapter 93A demand can cap what it pays, and a refusal made in bad faith can double or triple the award (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A, § 9(3)). What follows is general information, not legal advice about your letter: only a lawyer who has read it can tell you what it is worth.

1. Do not pay, reply or admit anything yet, and do not ignore it. Have a lawyer who defends TCPA cases read it, and let them be the one who answers the sender.
2. Stop calling and texting the number today. Whether or not the letter asks you to stop, put the number on your internal do-not-call list. The FCC requires anyone making telemarketing calls to keep one, under a written policy, and to honour a request within ten business days (47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d)). If you scrub with NumberBroom while signed in, add the number to Your do-not-call list in Settings and it is left out of every list you upload.
3. Keep every record, and switch off anything that deletes them. Call logs and recordings, the consent record with its date, your Registry scrub records, the opt-out log, where the lead came from, and the contract with whoever supplied or called it. A federal court can act when electronically stored information "that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation" is lost, and if the loss was meant to keep it from the other side, it can presume the information was unfavourable or enter a default judgment (Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e)).
4. Test the letter against what the statute requires. Most of a defence is here, and your lawyer will want these answers:
   • A Do Not Call claim, § 227(c)(5), needs "more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity" to a number on the Do Not Call Registry. It covers telephone solicitations, and a call to someone who gave "prior express invitation or permission", or with whom the caller has an established business relationship, is not one (§ 227(a)(4)).
   • The due-care defence. § 227(c)(5) makes it a defence that you "established and implemented, with due care, reasonable practices and procedures" to prevent those calls. The FCC's safe harbour, § 64.1200(c)(2), asks you to show the call was an error and that you had written procedures, trained staff, kept a do-not-call list and scrubbed against a Registry download no more than 31 days old, with records of it (the download takes a SAN). This is where the records from step 3 count.
   • An autodialer or prerecorded claim, § 227(b), turns on the consent you can produce and on the call itself: whether it used a prerecorded or artificial voice, or equipment that meets Facebook v. Duguid's definition of an autodialer (above).
   • The dates. Courts apply the federal four-year limit (above), so check when each call in the letter was made.
   • Who made the call. Under § 227(c)(5), a call a vendor or lead seller made for you is still made "on behalf of" your business, so ask them for their consent record for that number.
5. Check the number named in the letter. Check it free (a US number, five a day, with an email address). "Known litigator" means the number belongs to someone with a history of consumer-protection lawsuits: tell your lawyer, because a serial filer's history can bear on standing, as it did in Stoops v. Wells Fargo, though that is fact-specific. "No match" means only that the number is not in the database, not that the claim is weak.
6. Check the rest of the list before anyone dials it again. A litigator scrub removes known litigators and gives them back in a file of their own, so you can add them to your do-not-call list. It does not make past calls lawful, and it does not replace consent or a Registry scrub.

If you have already been sued

Talk to a lawyer who defends TCPA cases, and do it before responding to the plaintiff. The records the controls above produce -- consent with its date, the Registry scrub, the opt-out log, the reassigned-number query -- are what they will ask for first, and whether you can produce them usually decides how the case goes.

Frequently asked questions

Cameron Hoffman

Founder, NumberBroom · 10 years in telecommunications and marketing

Cameron Hoffman is the founder of NumberBroom and has spent 10 years working in telecommunications and marketing. He built NumberBroom after repeatedly watching outbound teams dial purchased lists that were full of dead numbers, landlines and TCPA litigators.