Credit Unions gain victory in TCPA supreme court case

Published by: kevin.miller

April 6, 2021 | Government Affairs

Since 2017, the League and the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) have been working together with other stakeholders in the credit union movement to address burdensome requirements and language in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

One specific contention that the League has consistently raised is that the definition of an automated telephone dialing system (ATDS) is so overly broad that it unfortunately captures good faith communications between credit unions and their members. Fortunately, on April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of the CUNA’s/League position in Facebook v. Duguid, supporting a narrow scope for the TCPA’s definition of an ATDS.

CUNA filed an amicus brief in the case, expressing concerns about the TCPA’s effect on credit unions who may rely on technology systems to efficiently and effectively contact their members with important information regarding their accounts, including mandatory servicing calls and fraud alerts.

CUNA’s brief supported Facebook’s argument that consumer harms can be avoided by narrowly defining an ATDS to apply only to equipment that has the capacity to generate random or sequential numbers and to automatically call those numbers. The Court agreed, with no Justices filing dissenting opinions. The Court’s ATDS definition clarification was critically important for credit union communications, allowing credit unions to share vital account information with their members without fear of unwarranted legal action due to the TCPA’s ambiguous language.

For more information about the U.S. Supreme Court decision, please contact League Regulatory Counsel Chris Noble at cnoble@ohiocul.org.