TCPA Plaintiff Suffered ‘Concrete Harm’ From Only Single Text Message, 11th Circuit Finds
The harm associated with an unwanted text message “shares a close relationship with the harm underlying the tort of intrusion upon seclusion,” said an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion Monday (docket 21-10199), saying plaintiff Susan Drazen suffered a…
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“concrete harm” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when she received only a single text message solicitation from GoDaddy. The harms “are similar in kind, and the receipt of an unwanted text message causes a concrete injury,” said the opinion. While an unwanted text message “is insufficiently offensive to satisfy the common law’s elements, Congress has used its lawmaking powers to recognize a lower quantum of injury necessary to bring a claim under the TCPA,” it said. The 11th Circuit disagreed with GoDaddy’s contention that Drazen and members of her class who received only a single text message didn’t suffer an injury that has a close relationship to the injury associated with intrusion upon seclusion. The Constitution “empowers Congress to decide what degree of harm is enough so long as that harm is similar in kind to a traditional harm,” said the opinion. “That’s exactly what Congress did in the TCPA when it provided a cause of action to redress the harm that unwanted telemarketing texts and phone calls cause,” it said.