9th Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Lucine Trim’s TCPA Claims vs. Reward Zone
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff Lucine Trim’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims that Reward Zone violated the statute when it sent her at least three mass marketing text messages that used…
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prerecorded voices, said its opinion Tuesday (docket 22-55517). A three-judge panel said the text messages didn’t use prerecorded voices under the TCPA because the texts didn’t include “audible components.” The panel relied on the “statutory context” of the TCPA and “the ordinary meaning of voice,” which showed Congress used the word voice “to include only an audible sound, and not a more symbolic definition such as an instrument or medium of expression,” it said. “The context of the statute bolsters that Congress did not understand the meaning of voice to include a metaphorical component such as medium of expression,” said the opinion: “If voice calls encompassed text messages, the inclusion of the term text message would be surplusage, and Congress would have written the statute in a manner contrary to a basic canon of statutory construction,” it said. Plaintiff Trim sparked some notoriety for her appeal when her reply brief in March argued that there’s “no such thing” as an artificial voice that uses a larynx, syrinx and lungs, as the district court had defined it (see 2303170046).