Hilton Grand Vacations Company secures groundbreaking Eleventh Circuit victory in TCPA litigation

Client(s) Hilton Grand Vacations Company, LLC

Jones Day client Hilton Grand Vacations Company (HGV) secured a groundbreaking Eleventh Circuit victory regarding the scope of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Jones Day represented HGV against a putative class of those who allegedly received unwanted, unlawful calls placed from an “automatic telephone dialing system.” The district court held that, although it was bound by old FCC orders construing this provision to cover equipment that merely dials from a list, HGV’s equipment did not qualify because an operator had to initiate every call. On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed but added even broader grounds. It agreed that HGV could not be held liable where operators had to click to initiate every single call. But it also swept away the effect of the old FCC orders and held that an automatic telephone dialing system must have the capacity to generate random or sequential numbers, not just to dial from a list. In doing so, the court expressly departed from the Ninth Circuit’s position, setting the stage for Supreme Court review of the crucial issue in a case next term.

Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co., No. 18-14499 (11th Cir.)