Moody v. Synchrony Bank

Moody v. Synchrony Bank

Opinion

 [*1363]  ORDER

After an initial motion to dismiss and an amended complaint, Moody's only remaining claim is for alleged use of prerecorded voice calls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"), 47 U.S.C. § 227. Docs. 11; 12. Defendant Synchrony Bank moves to dismiss Plaintiff Diann L. Moody's amended complaint. Doc. 14. Synchrony argues only that "the Supreme Court has ruled that the TCPA was unconstitutional from November 2015 through June 2020." Doc. 14-1 at 5. But the Supreme Court has not ruled that. Rather, the Supreme Court ruled that an  [*1364]  exception to the TCPA for government debt collectors was unconstitutional. Barr v. Am. Ass'n of Pol. Consultants, Inc., 140 S. Ct. 2335, 2343, 207 L. Ed. 2d 784 (2020) ("AAPC"). Moody's allegations do not involve the collection of government debt. Instead, Synchrony argues that even though AAPC held that the government-debt exception was severable from the rest of the TCPA, the AAPC decision still rendered the entirety of the TCPA invalid from 2015 to 2020.

To be clear, a three-Justice plurality of the Court in AAPC already [**2]  rejected that interpretation of the Court's order, concluding that "our decision today does not negate the liability of parties [such as Synchrony] who made robocalls covered by the robocall restriction." Id. at 2355 n.12 (plurality opinion). Nor did a concurrence or dissent in AAPC embrace Synchrony's argument. As discussed below, it is a long chain of reasoning that leads from the AAPC decision to Synchrony's argument that the TCPA was invalid from 2015 to 2020.

That is why Synchrony's statement that "the Supreme Court has ruled that the TCPA was unconstitutional from November 2015 through June 2020" is misleading. Still, the Court attempts to follow Synchrony's long chain of reasoning, then explain why it is mistaken, below.

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