Tag Archives: National DNC Registry

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A Florida Judge Just Said Consumers Can’t Sue Over the National Do-Not-Call List. Don’t Celebrate Yet.

If you run an outbound floor, you have probably treated the National Do-Not-Call Registry as the one rule you never mess with. On September 24, 2026, a federal court in the Middle District of Florida said something that would have sounded impossible a few years ago: a consumer cannot privately sue under the TCPA for calls to a number on the national registry. The case is Internicola v. MortgagePros, LLC, No. 6:25-CV-01613, and it is the sharpest swing yet in a fall full of rulings that are hollowing out the TCPA’s do-not-call claims.

Before anyone rips the DNC scrub out of their dialer, read on. This is a single district court, the plaintiff has already asked the judge to reconsider, and plenty of exposure remains.

What happened

According to TCPAWorld’s write-up of the decision, plaintiff Daniel Internicola put his number on the National DNC Registry in 2008. In April 2025 he talked to MortgagePros about refinancing his mortgage. On July 1, 2025, he withdrew his consent to be contacted. Over the next ten days, MortgagePros allegedly called or texted him just over a dozen times.

MortgagePros moved to dismiss, arguing that Section 227(c)(5), the TCPA’s do-not-call private right of action, does not reach national registry claims at all. The court agreed.

The reasoning, in plain terms

Section 227(c)(5) lets people sue over violations of “regulations prescribed under this subsection.” The court tied that phrase to Section 227(c)(2), which ordered the FCC to finish its do-not-call rulemaking “[n]ot later than 9 months after December 20, 1991.” By that reading, the private right of action only covers rules prescribed by September 20, 1992.

The problem for plaintiffs: the 1992 rules did not create a national registry. They required telemarketers to keep their own internal do-not-call lists. The National DNC Registry came in 2003, after Congress passed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act. So, the court concluded, there is no private right of action for national DNC claims. The court also agreed that texts are not “calls” under Section 227(c)(5), which TCPAWorld notes is a well-established position in Florida by now.

It is not just Florida

Six days later, on September 30, the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed DNC claims in Koeller v. Ox AppSec Security, Inc. on a different theory: cellphones are not “residential” telephones. Relying on Loper Bright and McLaughlin, the court declined to follow the FCC’s 2003 interpretation that swept cellphones into the residential subscriber category, writing that “updating the statute to extend coverage to cellphones is Congress’s job, not the courts.”

Stack those with the growing pile of “texts are not calls” decisions and you get a picture of DNC litigation that looks very different depending on which courthouse you are standing in.

What operators should actually do

  • Keep scrubbing. These are district court rulings. They bind nobody outside their own cases, and TCPAWorld reported on October 5 that California federal courts are still holding SMS counts as calls for DNC purposes. Your dialer does not know which district a lawsuit will be filed in.
  • Your internal DNC list matters more, not less. If the Internicola logic spreads, the 1992-era internal do-not-call obligations are exactly what it leaves standing. Honor opt-outs fast and log them.
  • Look at the facts. This case started with a consumer who withdrew consent and then allegedly got a dozen-plus contacts in ten days. Revocation handling is where the trouble began, and revocation rules are not going anywhere.
  • Remember the other statutes. Robocall and autodialer claims under Section 227(b) were not touched here, and state mini-TCPAs have their own private rights of action.

Screen the people who sue for a living

Rulings like these will change how plaintiffs plead, not whether they file. Serial filers adapt fast, and they will reach for state statutes, revocation theories and autodialer counts when DNC claims dry up. One of the simplest defenses is knowing who is on the other end of the line before you dial. TCPALitigatorList.com lets teams screen their call and text lists against known TCPA litigators, so the numbers most likely to turn into a demand letter never make it into the campaign.

The bottom line

Internicola is a big swing, and a motion for reconsideration is already pending. Treat it as a sign of where some courts are heading, not as a hall pass. The operators who stay out of court will be the ones who keep their consent records clean, honor stop requests quickly, and know their risk before the first ring.

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