A Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) plaintiff who was neither a subscriber of the telephone number nor a customary user of the number failed to state a claim under the statute, a New York federal court has ruled.

Ashley Blume took out two student loans that were co-signed by her aunt, Deborah Jackson. After Blume began making payments on the loans, she requested that Navient Corporation, her loan servicer, release Jackson as a co-signor.

According to Blume, Navient declined to fulfill the request until she made a certain number of payments; it then refused when her payments were not made in full by the due date and because her debt-to-income ratio was too substantial.

By June 2019, Jackson had been receiving robocalls every day, Blume said, even though she had only consented to communications via mail. Blume filed suit under the TCPA and New York state law.

After removing the case to federal court, Navient moved to dismiss.

U.S. District Court Judge Anne M. Nardacci granted the motion with respect to the TCPA claim and remanded to state court on the remaining claims.

“The TCPA provides that it is unlawful ‘to initiate any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes, is made solely pursuant to the collection of a debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States, or is exempted by rule or order by the [Federal Communications] Commission [(“FCC”)] under paragraph (2)(B),” Judge Nardacci explained.

“Only ‘called parties’ may state a claim under the TCPA,” the court wrote further. The FCC has stated that a ‘called party’ is ‘the subscriber, i.e., the consumer assigned the telephone number dialed and billed for the call, or the non-subscriber customary user of a telephone number included in a family or business calling plan.’”

Because Blume was neither the subscriber nor the customary user of Jackson’s telephone number, she could not make a claim under the statute, the Court held.

Fatal to Blume’s claim was her failure to allege that she was a “called party” under the TCPA because Blume had alleged both that the prohibited calls were made to her aunt and that Navient did not contact Blume. Accordingly, the court granted the motion to dismiss Blume’s TCPA claim.

To read the decision and order in Blume v. Navient Corporation, click here.

Why it matters

As neither the consumer assigned to the telephone number dialed and billed for the call, nor the non-subscriber customary user of the telephone number that received the calls from the defendant, the plaintiff was unable to state a claim under the TCPA.