The Eleventh Circuit’s Minority View of Article III Results in Dismissal of Another TCPA Case

The District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently dismissed a TCPA lawsuit for lack of Article III standing, holding that five unsolicited text messages did not constitute a concrete injury. Muccio v. Global Motivation, Inc., __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2022 WL 17969922 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 27, 2022).  In so doing, the court applied the Eleventh Circuit precedent in Salcedo v. Hanna, which held that a single, unsolicited text message did not itself constitute a concrete injury.

In Muccio, the plaintiffs alleged receiving five unsolicited text messages from defendant Global Motivation, Inc. The complaint alleged that the text messages did not include the ability to opt-out of future messaging and failed to identify the name of the sender or include the sender’s contact information. The court decided the motion on Article III standing. The mere existence of a statutory right, the court explained, even if violated, does not excuse the need for a plaintiff to allege a concrete injury. The complaint, however, merely sought to redress “inconvenience, invasion of privacy, annoyance, and violation of their statutory rights.” Applying the rule set forth in Salcedo v. Hanna, the Muccio court dismissed the suit without prejudice for failure to allege a concrete injury.