Specifically, plaintiff alleged that from April 2016 to April 2017, defendant left approximately 30 ringless voicemails on plaintiff’s phone. Plaintiff alleged that defendant used a vendor, VoApp, to leave prerecorded ringless voicemails on her phone. Plaintiff claimed that from 2015 to 2017 defendant called repeatedly and left numerous voicemails on plaintiff’s telephone. For now, however, those using ringless voicemail as part of their business should be wary of the technology and its potential TCPA liability given this ruling.īy way of background, on April 12, 2017, plaintiff Karen Saunders filed suit against defendant Dyck O’Neal, Inc. The decision will undoubtedly put smiles on the plaintiffs’ TCPA bar, but with the ever evolving law in TCPA-land and the Court’s failure to fully appreciate the technological and legal differences between traditional calls and ringless voicemail, future decisions reaching a different outcome are entirely possible. Putting aside, for now, whether it was properly decided, the decision now places ringless voicemail, also known as direct drop voicemail and direct-to-voicemail, in the same playing field as traditional calls and text messages for liability purposes under the TCPA. In a case of first impression nationally, a Federal District Court recently denied a defendant’s motion for summary judgment and held that ringless voicemail is a “call” under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).