by David O. Klein (New York)

On March 13, 2023, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to
rehear the issue of whether a single unsolicited text message confers
standing under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"). This is
an important issue for all TCPA text message lawsuit defendants.

As background, Plaintiffs filed this class action lawsuit in the
Southern District of Alabama alleging that GoDaddy.com. LLC
("GoDaddy") violated the TCPA by placing calls and sending text
messages using an automated telephone dialing system without recipient
consent. After the parties reached agreement on the terms of a
settlement, the parties moved for preliminary approval of the TCPA
text class action settlement. Briefing was then ordered by the Court
as to whether Salcedo v. Hanna precluded approval of the class. The
Salcedo decision held that the receipt of a single unwanted text
message was not a concrete injury and, thus, did not confer standing
to sue under the TCPA. The District Court in the GoDaddy proceeding at
hand held that Salcedo applied and, therefore, required that the named plaintiff, who only received a singular text message, be removed as
class representative. On that condition, the District Court certified
the rest of the class and awarded attorneys' fees. Class member,
Pinto, objected to the settlement, and filed a notice of appeal
claiming that it violated the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA") as it
offered class members the choice between cash or a GoDaddy
voucher. Pinto argued that the voucher was a coupon, which made the
settlement subject to the heightened scrutiny of CAFA.

https://www.mondaq.com/article/news/1297320?q=1803232&n=740&tp=14&tlk=16&lk=76

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