By: Jeffrey Backman, Esq. and Roy Taub, Esq.
A recent order from the Middle District of Florida adds to the growing divide over whether a text message qualifies as a “telephone call” for purposes of the TCPA’s National Do-Not-Call (DNC) provisions, and whether those DNC rules apply to texts at all. In El Sayed v. Naturopathica Holistic Health, Inc., 2025 WL 2997759, the court dismissed a TCPA DNC claim premised on promotional text messages, holding that the statutory phrase “telephone call” does not include “text message.”
The court concluded that Congress knows the difference between the words it uses, and the TCPA’s use in the statute of “a call made using a voice service” as distinguished from the language “a text message sent using a text messaging service” confirms that the terms carry different meanings. Treating “telephone call” and “text message” as equivalent, according to the court, would render Congress’s separate usage superfluous and undermine statutory clarity.
For more background on this issue, see our previous blog discussing the conflicting interpretations of texts under the TCPA. As lawsuits continue to emerge raising similar questions about whether promotional texts fall under DNC restrictions, it’s clear this debate is far from settled.
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