TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act)

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), 47 U.S.C. 227, is the main federal law against unwanted calls and texts. Its core rules:

• No calls or texts to cell phones using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice without the recipient's prior express consent, except for emergencies. Telemarketing requires prior express written consent.
• No prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential landlines without consent.
• No telemarketing to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, subject to limited exceptions such as an existing business relationship.
• Callers must honor requests to stop.

What makes the TCPA so often litigated is its private right of action with fixed damages. Under the TCPA, each unlawful robocall or text can carry $500 in statutory damages, and up to $1,500 if the caller acted willfully or knowingly. For Do Not Call violations, a person generally must receive more than one call within 12 months from the same entity. Because damages are set per call, a campaign that reached thousands of people can support a class action worth millions.

The law has narrowed in one respect. In Facebook v. Duguid (2021), the Supreme Court held that equipment counts as an autodialer only if it uses a random or sequential number generator, which knocked out many autodialer claims. Claims based on prerecorded voices and Do Not Call violations were not affected, and that is where much TCPA litigation now focuses.

Start with our TCPA explainer and how much you can get from a TCPA lawsuit, then see the robocall lawsuit page and settlements like the Momentum Solar TCPA settlement.