Last year, the Eleventh Circuit held in Salcedo v. Hanna, 936 F.3d 1162 (11th Cir. 2019) that a plaintiff did not have Article III standing to sue for a violation of the TCPA based on receipt of a single text message. The Eleventh Circuit has now extended its reasoning in Salcedo in holding that a plaintiff does not suffer concrete injury through receipt of a single ringless voice mail message. Grigorian v. FCA US LLC, No. 19-15026, 2020 WL 7238392 (11th Cir. Dec. 9, 2020).
A ringless voice mail message (RVM) is sent using technology that “drops” a pre-recorded voice message in a voice mail box without making the recipient’s phone ring. According to the court’s opinion, Plaintiff received an RVM from defendant regarding an automobile special offer. She sued defendant in a putative class action on the basis the defendant’s RVM violated the TCPA. Plaintiff argued she suffered a concrete injury because she was studying for the Florida bar exam when she received the RVM, and lost time when she had to stop studying in order to listen to the voicemail, and time afterwards “trying to figure out how her information was obtained and why she was being called.” However, the RVM did not render her phone unavailable to receive legitimate calls or messages for any period of time.
This was not the first time the Eleventh Circuit has examined standing to sue for TCPA violations. It examined the issue in different contexts, including phone calls (Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC, 942 F.3d 1259, 1269–70 (11th Cir. 2019)) faxes (Florence Endocrine v....
