On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit, in Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd v. FCC, found that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overstepped its statutory authority in implementing robocall and robotext "one-to-one consent" and "logically and topically related" requirements under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The challenged rules had required consumers to provide separate consent for each company and limit communications to subjects logically and topically related to the initial interaction. The court vacated the rules and remanded the matter back to the FCC for further proceedings.
In their decision, Judges Branch, Luck, and Lagoa sided with petitioner Insurance Marketing Coalition's argument that the rules conflict with the ordinary statutory meaning of the TCPA's "prior express consent" language. The court thus vacated the portion of the order that states that a consumer can't consent to a telemarketing or advertising robocall unless they consent to calls from only one entity at a time and consent only to calls whose subject matter is "logically and topically associated with the interaction that prompted the consent."
The court explained that since the TCPA statute does not specifically define "prior express consent," the common law concept of consent applies. As long as a consumer's consent is given voluntarily and clearly, they can authorize communications from multiple entities simultaneously.
Moreover, the court held that the "logically and topically related" restriction contradicted the plain meaning of "prior express consent" because consumers can validly consent to receive calls on unrelated topics, provided such consent remains "clear and unambiguous."
The Eleventh Circuit ruling came on the same day that the FCC issued an order postponing the effective date for the new one-to-one consent requirement. The order postponed the effective date by 12 months, to January 26, 2026, or after the FCC issues a public notice specifying an earlier date (in which case that earlier date would apply).