In the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., this past summer saw two federal district courts rule that text messages are not covered under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's (TCPA) Do-Not-Call (DNC) provisions, which represents a significant departure from decades of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidance and established precedent.
While this seems like an unqualified win for SMS marketers, they should pause before uncorking the champagne, as the summer also saw another federal district court issue a contrary decision on the same subject. These conflicting decisions lead to two important questions: why is this happening, and what does it mean for the future of TCPA compliance?
The McLaughlin Framework
The Supreme Court's decision in McLaughlin v. McKesson fundamentally altered the TCPA litigation landscape by holding that district courts are no longer bound by FCC interpretations of the TCPA under the Hobbs Act. Instead, courts must now independently interpret the statute using ordinary principles of statutory interpretation while giving FCC guidance only "appropriate respect" rather than binding deference. This shift opened the door for courts to reconsider longstanding FCC positions, particularly regarding whether text messages constitute "calls" under the TCPA.
The McLaughlin decision builds on the Supreme Court’s prior ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated Chevron deference. Without belaboring the details of a major Supreme Court decision, McLaughlin stands for three basic principles:
- District courts must apply “ordinary principles of statutory interpretation” rather than defer to agency guidance.
- FCC interpretations receive only “appropriate respect,” not binding deference.
- Courts can independently assess whether FCC rules exceed statutory authority.
Armed with these three core principles, federal courts have begun to apply them in the context of whether the TCPA’s DNC provisions are intended to cover text messages as “calls.
Recent District Court Decisions Applying McLaughlin
Jones v. Blackstone Medical Services, LLC: On July 21, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois became the first court to apply the McLaughlin framework to TCPA DNC claims involving text messages. In this consolidated class action, three plaintiffs alleged that Blackstone Medical Services violated TCPA Section 227(c) by sending repeated marketing text messages to numbers on the National DNC Registry and after consumers requested the messages stop.
The court conducted a plain language analysis of Section 227(c)(5), which creates a private right of action for those who receive "more than one telephone call" in violation of DNC regulations. Critically, the court noted that while terms like "text message" and "SMS message" appear elsewhere in the TCPA, they are "wholly absent from Section 227(c)(5) and its implementing regulations."
The court concluded that "in today's American parlance, 'telephone call' means something entirely different from 'text message'." Applying this ordinary meaning interpretation, the court held that "under a plain reading, Section 227(c)(5) of the TCPA does not regulate text messages." The court dismissed the plaintiffs' DNC-based TCPA claims with prejudice.
Davis v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc.: Less than six weeks after Jones, on August 26, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida reached the same conclusion in Davis v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc. The plaintiff alleged that CVS violated TCPA DNC provisions by sending him promotional text messages while his number was registered on the National DNC.
The Florida court emphasized that it must interpret the TCPA "in accord with the ordinary public meaning of its terms at the time of its enactment" and that "if the text is clear, the analysis begins and ends there." The court adopted CVS's argument that "no normal person refers to a text message, or thinks of a text message, as a 'call'" and that "no ordinary user of the English language would write the sentence 'John called Sue' intending to mean 'John sent a text message to Sue'."
Notably, the court explicitly rejected reliance on a 2003 FCC order treating text messages as calls for TCPA purposes, stating it was not required to utilize "a statutory interpretation that conflicts with the ordinary public meaning of clear statutory text."
Wilson v. Skopos Financial, LLC: In a ruling released on the exact same day as the Jones decision, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon reached the opposite conclusion on the same issue in Wilson v. Skopos Financial, LLC. The Oregon court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, holding that "the cause of action provided in § 227(c)(5) includes text messages."
The Wilson court found the FCC's expansion of TCPA coverage to text messages "congruent with Congress's overarching goals for the TCPA" and stated that "it cannot be argued in good faith that text messages are so categorically different from phone calls that the former cannot be considered an invasion of consumer privacy when directed at numbers on the DNC Registry."
Legal Impact and Circuit Split Development
These conflicting decisions have created immediate compliance challenges and litigation uncertainty for businesses engaged in SMS marketing. The split demonstrates the profound impact of the McLaughlin decision, with some courts applying strict textual interpretation while others continue to defer to FCC precedent and policy considerations.
Strategic Implications of McLaughlin Decisions
The divergent rulings in recent TCPA cases applying McLaughlin to text-based DNC cases create several key implications:
Forum Shopping: Both plaintiffs and defendants will seek to take advantage of jurisdictional approaches to text message interpretation. For example, we can expect more text-based DNC cases to be filed in those jurisdictions in which favorable rulings on the subject have been issued.
Increased Motion Filings: Most district courts have not yet had the opportunity to rule on whether text messages qualify as calls under the TCPA, so we can expect more defendants in those jurisdictions to challenge TCPA text message claims by filing motions to dismiss them.
Compliance Uncertainty: The days in which litigants could rely on FCC interpretations of the TCPA are clearly over, which means businesses must now navigate potentially conflicting requirements across different federal districts, which further exacerbates an already challenging compliance landscape.
Broader Applications of McLaughlin
Beyond text message coverage, McLaughlin is being applied to challenge various FCC TCPA interpretations across multiple legal areas.
TCPA Quiet Hours Restrictions: The FCC’s regulation prohibiting “telephone solicitations” before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. is facing significant challenges post-McLaughlin in the context of cases based on quiet hour violations. The text of the TCPA does not include any quiet hour provisions, which means they were created through the implied authority of the FCC rather than explicit congressional direction.
Courts are now free to independently assess whether the FCC exceeded its statutory authority in creating these time-based restrictions. Multiple cases are expected to challenge quiet hours authority, particularly where defendants argue that consented communications should not be subject to time restrictions
STIR/SHAKEN and TRACED Act Implementation: McLaughlin has opened the door to challenges of FCC implementation of STIR/SHAKEN protocols under the TRACED Act. Previously, challenging the FCC’s interpretation of TRACED Act requirements was virtually impossible at the district court level due to Hobbs Act constraints. Now district courts are free to evaluate how the FCC reads and applies the TRACED Act
Cellular Phone “Residential” Classification: The FCC’s interpretation that cellular phones constitute “residential telephone subscribers” for DNC purposes is now subject to independent judicial review. The term “residential” is not defined within the TCPA, and unlike Section 227(b), Congress did not explicitly extend Section 227(c) protections to cellular services. This creates an opportunity for defendants to argue that the FCC exceeded its authority in extending DNC protections to wireless numbers.
Prior Express Written Consent Requirements: McLaughlin also enables challenges to the FCC’s detailed consent requirements that go beyond the TCPA’s statutory text. The Bradford v. Sovereign Pest Control appeal, currently pending before the Fifth Circuit, is expected to test whether FCC consent formalities exceed congressional authorization
Welcome to the McLaughlin Era
The emergence of these district court decisions applying McLaughlin to overrule longstanding FCC interpretations of the TCPA demonstrates how the Supreme Court’s elimination of agency deference has emboldened courts to conduct independent textual analyses of FCC regulations, potentially reshaping TCPA enforcement across federal circuits.
If nothing else, the conflicting decisions in Jones/Davis versus Wilson demonstrate that we now live in an era of inconsistent rulings and compliance uncertainty, in which companies that send marketing texts, calls, and faxes must reevaluate FCC regulations once held as established law.
And this new era is not likely to end anytime soon. McLaughlin represents not merely a procedural shift but a fundamental rebalancing of interpretive authority from administrative agencies back to the federal judiciary. As courts continue to apply this framework, the TCPA litigation landscape will likely remain in flux until appellate courts provide additional guidance, or Congress acts to clarify statutory ambiguities.
