Dictionaries may be a defendant’s new best friend when it comes to litigating under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). A question that used to elicit a cut-and-dry ruling—a motion to dismiss based on cell phones not being covered by the TCPA—instead turned into a carefully reasoned analysis by a Georgia federal court. See Isaacs v. USHealth Advisors, LLC, No. 3:24-CV-00216-LMM, 2025 WL 2268359 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 7, 2025).

Before diving into the Isaacs ruling, here is a quick primer: Federal district courts are bound to follow published decisions issued by their circuit court of appeals. Both district courts and circuit courts are required to follow Supreme Court decisions. For example, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issues a published decision and a federal judge in the Central District of California (a court within the Ninth Circuit) is bound to follow the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ holding. This principle (known as stare decisis for a sprinkle of pretention) is building block lawyers learn in the first week of law school In making its rulings, the Supreme Court either explicitly affirms or overturns the ruling issued by a court of appeals.

That’s a big part of what makes the ruling in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025), so crucial and impactful. McKesson didn’t just overturn a specific ruling. See McKesson, 606 U.S.at 168. It overturned the lower courts’ reasoning. Id.

Notice that I did not specify which lower courts’ reasoning McKesson overturned… because McKesson said that every district court and every circuit court of appeals was mistaken in its reasoning by relying on decisions by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), an administrative agency. Id. (“We see no good rationale for … an absolute-deference rule.”).

Obviously, the Supreme Court makes numerous landscape-changing decisions across the boundaries of the TCPA. College sports used to prohibit athletes from receiving payment until the Supreme Court upheld a decision, finding that those prohibitions violated antitrust laws. See Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69, 107 (2021). Now, if college sports tried to ban payments to athletes, a district judge would be bound to block that restriction. It would be a super easy decision set forth by binding authority.

McKesson explicitly held that “absolute deference” to agency rulings was incorrect and that courts are bound to interpret the statutory text of the TCPA. McKesson, 606 U.S. at 168. But nearly every TCPA circuit court of appeals absolutely deferred to the FCC’s interpretations of the TCPA. So, what are district courts now supposed to do?

There are two options a judge may take. First, district courts can do exactly what the Supreme Court said and directly interpret the statutory text. Second, district courts can defer to previously issued court of appeals decisions.

As exemplified by the court’s just-issued decision in Isaacs—and on par with Wilson v. Hard Eight, No. 6:25-cv-00144, 2025 WL 1784815 (D. Or. June 27, 2025)—the former seems to be emerging as the majority approach. See Isaacs, 2025 WL 2268359, at *2–3. The plaintiff alleged violations of the TCPA’s do-not-call provisions—47 U.S.C. § 227(c). Id. at *1. Noting that it was dealing with a question that previously “was well-settled” the court was faced with a motion to dismiss based on whether a cell phone number was a “residential subscriber” protected by the TCPA. Id. at *2. The Isaacs court did not immediately turn to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. See id. Instead, it pulled out the TCPA’s statutory text and a dictionary. See id.

The defendant wanted the court to view “residential” as referring to a “person’s home or abode” and thus excluding cell phones, which can be used outside of a home. Id. at *3. It is an interesting argument. To dispense with it, the court had to do some linguistic gymnastics.

In arriving at the conclusion that a “residential subscriber” includes cell phones, the Isaacs court focused more on the word “subscriber” because it is a noun. See id. And the court looked at the definition of “subscriber” which is a “person who makes a regular payment in return for … access to a commercially provided service.” Id.

Then, the court decided that the term “residential” is only relevant for whether the TCPA applies to “a certain type of phone subscriber rather than a to a particular type of phone technology.” Id. (citing Residence, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024)).

So even though the definition of “residence” is the “act or fact of living in a given place for some time[,]” the court decided that “residential subscriber” simply means “a person who maintains a phone for the purposes of their private residence rather than for commercial or business purposes.” Id.

After reaching this conclusion, the Isaacs court did turn to an Eleventh Circuit decision, but only to give a picture of the “overall purpose of the TCPA.” Id. at *4. It did not indicate that it was bound or persuaded by the reasoning of that decision in any way… even though it happened to reach the same decision. See id. at *2–4.

A ruling the other way would have been persuasive authority that calls to cell phones do not violate the TCPA. It would have been huge. And there have already been chaotic rulings of that nature, such as holding that text messages do not violate the TCPA. See Jones, et al. v. Blackstone, No. 1:24-cv-01074,2025 WL 2042764 (C.D. Ill. July 21, 2025).

In the coming months, there are sure to be a bounty of new rulings going in both directions. There may even be a different judge who agrees with the Isaacs defendant’s residence argument.