SCOTUS Says District Courts Are Not Bound by FCC Orders Interpreting the TCPA

On June 20, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered an opinion that could dramatically change the landscape of class actions under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). 

In the case—McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corporation—the Court held that the Hobbs Act does not bind district courts in civil enforcement proceedings to accept an agency’s interpretation of statutes such as the TCPA. The Court emphasized that district courts “instead must determine the meaning of the law under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation.” More directly, the FCC’s word is not the last in determining the TCPA’s definitional and liability standards. 

The underlying case involved a dispute as to whether the district court was bound to follow an FCC order that “an online fax service is not a ‘telephone facsimile machine’” actionable under the TCPA. The district court ultimately decided that the FCC’s ruling was “a final, binding order” dictating how the law must be applied. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision.

A 6-3 Supreme Court majority, however, held that both lower courts got it wrong. District courts are not barred from independently assessing whether the FCC’s interpretation of the statute is correct and, in fact, categorically refusing to interpret the statute is error.

Suddenly with the Court’s decision, decades of FCC orders—as well as years of judicial precedent adopting the FCC’s interpretation of the law—are called into question. New battlegrounds are sure to arise as litigants seek to redefine “correct” interpretations of the TCPA’s requirements, including with respect to definitional language in the statute, its applicability to text message communications, and the scope of consent and opt-out compliance requirements under the law.

A three-justice dissent, led by Justice Kagan, notably raises concern with the majority’s holding, finding that the decision will lead to regulatory uncertainty, undermine the stability of administrative programs, and cause parties to disregard pre-enforcement agency orders.

Whatever the end result may be, there should be no dispute that McLaughlin will change how parties previously litigated TCPA class actions, and it opens opportunities for defense attorneys to make new arguments protecting clients against massive TCPA liability risks moving forward.