A proposed class action lawsuit accusing Facebook of violating a federal anti-robocall law may not go forward because the social media company’s unwanted text messages are not covered under federal law, the Supreme Court ruled April 1. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the unanimous decision for the high court in Facebook Inc. v. Duguid, court file 19-511. Justice Samuel Alito filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment. The case, heard telephonically Dec. 8, 2020, concerns a federal law that imposes penalties of up to $1,500 for each unwanted call or text. The prohibition on such calls applies to dialing systems that can “store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator.” To deal with a growing volume of telephone marketing calls, in 1991 Congress enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), to curb perceived telemarketing abuses. The statute “restricts the making of telemarketing calls and …
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