Alistair Edwards—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

            The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA” or the “Act”) makes it unlawful “to make any call . . . using any automatic telephone dialing system . . . to any telephone number assigned to a . . . cellular telephone service.” 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii).

            In Maes v. Charter Communication, No. 18-cv-124-jdp, 2018 WL 5619199 (W.D. Wis. Oct. 30, 2018), the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin recently considered whether a predictive dialer constituted an autodialer (an automatic dialing system) under the TCPA. In that case, the telemarketer called the plaintiff using a predictive dialer, a piece of equipment used in call centers to automatically dial phone numbers and connect representatives to customers that answer the phone. When the plaintiff answered phone calls from the telemarketer, he heard silence before the phone system connected him with a representative. The plaintiff then proceeded to sue the telemarketer under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), which prohibits making “any call . . . using any automated telephone dialing system . . . to any telephone number assigned to a . . . cellular telephone service.”