Are Texts "Telephone Calls" Under the TCPA? The Circuit Split and What It Means in South Carolina

Can You Sue for Spam Texts Under the TCPA's Do-Not-Call Law?

If your number is on the National Do Not Call Registry and a company keeps texting you anyway, you probably assume you can sue. For years, most courts agreed with you. But in 2026, that assumption started cracking: a federal appeals court held that text messages are not "telephone calls" under the TCPA's do-not-call private right of action — and a growing number of district courts are following it.

The result is a live circuit split. And it matters enormously for South Carolina consumers, because the answer determines which lawsuits survive a motion to dismiss.

This is the state of play as of October 2026. The law here is moving fast — the Fourth Circuit, which covers South Carolina, has not weighed in — so treat this as the current map, not the final word.

The Question Courts Are Fighting Over: Are Text Messages "Telephone Calls"?

The TCPA's do-not-call provision, 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5), gives a private right of action to "[a] person who has received more than one telephone call within any 12-month period by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the regulations prescribed under this subsection." The question is whether an unwanted text message is a "telephone call" under that provision.

For nearly two decades, the answer was treated as settled. The Ninth Circuit held in Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, 569 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. 2009), that a text message is a "call" under the TCPA — though that case involved a different provision, § 227(b). The FCC long interpreted the do-not-call rules to cover texts. Most courts went along.

Then the Supreme Court changed the deference landscape, and one circuit took a hard look at the actual words Congress used.

The Steidinger Decision: Why the Seventh Circuit Says Texts Aren't Calls

In Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, No. 25-2398 (7th Cir. July 14, 2026), a unanimous panel (Judges Kirsch, Pryor, and Maldonado, opinion by Judge Kirsch) became the first federal appeals court to hold that text messages are not "telephone calls" within the meaning of § 227(c)(5). The plaintiffs had filed a consolidated class action over marketing texts from Blackstone Medical Services promoting home sleep tests — texts that kept coming after recipients replied "STOP" or registered on the Do Not Call Registry. The district court dismissed, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed.

The court's reasoning, verified from the opinion itself, ran on four tracks:

1. The ordinary 1991 meaning. Because the TCPA doesn't define "telephone call," the court looked to what the words meant when Congress enacted the statute. In 1991, a telephone was "[a]n instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance" (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary), and a call meant "to get or try to get into communication by telephone." Texts don't reproduce sound. The first text message wasn't even sent until 1992 — a year after the TCPA passed.

2. The statute's own structure. Congress knew how to write broadly: § 227(a)(4) defines "telephone solicitation" as "a telephone call or message." But § 227(c)(5) creates the private right of action only for recipients of "telephone call[s]" — not messages, not solicitations. Different words, different scope.

3. No more FCC deference. The Supreme Court's 2025 decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025), held that courts are not bound by the FCC's interpretations of the TCPA. The FCC's long-standing position that the do-not-call rules cover texts no longer controls.

4. The Supreme Court never actually decided it. Plaintiffs pointed to Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153 (2016), where the Court said it was "undisputed" that a text qualifies as a "call." The Seventh Circuit noted that this was assumed, not decided — and it concerned § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), a different provision using the broader word "call."

Courts Adopting the Steidinger Reading

Steidinger is now spreading. Roughly seventeen district courts have adopted its reading, including:

• Radvansky v. 1st Class Medical, No. 1:25-cv-03796 (D. Colo. Sept. 23, 2026) — dismissed a § 227(c)(5) claim with prejudice where the plaintiff alleged only marketing texts to a DNC-registered number, following Steidinger's dictionary and structural analysis. (Case details from published legal-industry summaries; the slip opinion was not yet publicly indexed.)
• Card v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00433 (M.D.N.C.) — the first district court inside the Fourth Circuit to adopt the Steidinger line. (Details from published summaries; opinion not yet publicly indexed.)
• Lowrey v. Twilio, Inc., No. 6:25-cv-00116 (W.D. Va. Oct. 1, 2026) — Judge Norman K. Moon held that an unwanted text "standing alone, cannot supply the multiple 'telephone calls' necessary for a private do-not-call claim," adding a second ground: a cellphone is not a "residential telephone line" under § 227(c)(5). (Details from published summaries; opinion not yet publicly indexed.)
• Conrad v. Hart Consumer Products, No. 4:24-cv-307-CLM (N.D. Ala.) — applied the 1991-meaning, omitted-case, and surplusage canons to hold § 227(c)(5) limited to voice calls. (Details from a published summary.)

The trend is one-directional: every new decision this year has gone the Steidinger way. And the reasoning isn't limited to the National Do Not Call Registry — several of these courts have applied the same logic to internal do-not-call claims (texts sent after a consumer told that specific company to stop), since those claims run through the same § 227(c)(5) private right of action. That makes the stakes bigger than the Registry: the same "telephone call" wording governs both.

The Other Side: Courts That Still Treat Texts as Calls

The split is real, not theoretical. The Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the Satterfield line in Howard v. Republican National Committee, No. 23-3826 (9th Cir. Jan. 13, 2026) — texts are "calls" under § 227(b). And in Miller v. S. Brown & Associates, a Central District of California court allowed a text-based § 227(c)(5) claim to proceed just one day before Radvansky was decided, bound by Ninth Circuit authority treating texts as calls. (Details from published summaries.)

So the map looks like this: the Seventh Circuit says texts aren't "telephone calls" under § 227(c)(5); the Ninth Circuit says texts are "calls" under § 227(b); roughly seventeen districts have joined the Seventh Circuit's camp; and the Supreme Court has not taken the case — yet.

Where South Carolina Stands: The Fourth Circuit Has Not Ruled

Here is the honest bottom line for South Carolina: the Fourth Circuit has said nothing on this question. Neither Card nor Lowrey binds a South Carolina federal judge — district-court decisions aren't binding even within their own districts, let alone across state lines. And no District of South Carolina judge has addressed the texts-vs.-calls question under § 227(c)(5) either.

What D.S.C. has done: in Connor v. JF Marketing & Support, LLC, No. 2:25-cv-07135-DCN (D.S.C. Feb. 25, 2026), the court denied a motion to dismiss TCPA do-not-call claims brought by a Charleston County plaintiff — but that case involved voice calls, so it doesn't resolve the text question.

That means a text-only § 227(c)(5) claim is still pleadable in South Carolina federal court today. But it now faces serious dismissal risk: two sister districts in your own circuit have gone the other way, every 2026 decision trends one direction, and defense counsel will file the Steidinger motion on day one.

What South Carolina plaintiffs' lawyers are actually doing in response: pairing claims. The complaints landing in D.S.C. this year allege the federal (c)(5) claim alongside the SCTPPA claim and, where the facts support it, a § 227(b) consent claim — so that even if the judge adopts Steidinger for the do-not-call count, the text-explicit state claim and the (b) claim survive. It's belt-and-suspenders pleading for a moving legal target, and it's the right approach until the Fourth Circuit or the Supreme Court settles it.

The Critical Distinction: TCPA Section 227(b) vs. Section 227(c)(5)

This is the most important part of the post, so read it twice: Steidinger left § 227(b) completely untouched.

The do-not-call provision, § 227(c)(5), says "telephone call." But the robocall provision, § 227(b), says "call" — and the Ninth Circuit's Satterfield line (reaffirmed in Howard) holds that texts are "calls" under § 227(b). Steidinger expressly distinguished the two provisions; its reasoning about 1991 dictionaries and statutory structure was aimed at the narrower "telephone call" language in (c)(5), not at (b).

Practically, that means the § 227(b) consent claim — autodialed or prerecorded texts, or telemarketing texts sent without your prior express written consent — is where text-message liability still lives. If a company texted you marketing messages without written permission, or kept texting after you replied "STOP," the (b) claim is the vehicle, and Steidinger doesn't touch it. (For how courts decide whether a text counts as "telemarketing" at all — the purpose-over-wording test — see our breakdown of the Ohio dealership ruling.) That's also the claim carrying $500 per violation, up to $1,500 for willful or knowing violations, under § 227(b)(3).

Don't build a text case on the do-not-call provision alone anymore. Plead (b) wherever the facts support it.

South Carolina's Own Law Explicitly Covers Texts

Here's the part most coverage of this split misses: South Carolina's own telemarketing statute answers the text question directly — and texts count.

The South Carolina Telephone Privacy Protection Act (SCTPPA), S.C. Code § 37-21-10 et seq., defines "telephone solicitation" to mean "the initiation of a telephone call, or a text or media message sent, to a natural person's residence in the State, or to a wireless telephone with a South Carolina area code, for the purpose of offering or advertising a property, good, or service." S.C. Code § 37-21-20(6) (emphasis added). No dictionary archaeology required — the legislature wrote "text" into the definition.

And the remedies are real: § 37-21-70 bars telephone solicitations to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry and to anyone who has said "don't contact me again," while § 37-21-80 gives the aggrieved consumer a private action for $1,000 per violation — up to $5,000 per violation if the violation was willful — plus reasonable attorneys' fees and court costs. That's fee-shifting the federal TCPA doesn't offer.

So even as the federal do-not-call claim for texts wobbles under the Steidinger line, a South Carolina plaintiff texted on a South Carolina area-code number has a state-law claim that says the quiet part out loud: texts are covered. D.S.C. plaintiffs are already pairing TCPA and SCTPPA claims in the same complaints — as in the Connor case discussed above.

What to Do If You're Getting Unwanted Texts in South Carolina

The split doesn't change your homework. If anything, it makes documentation more important, because the lawyer evaluating your case needs to see which claims fit:

1. Screenshot everything. Every text, the sender's number, the date and time it arrived, and your "STOP" reply. Don't delete the thread — it's the evidence.
2. Opt out in writing. Reply STOP (or END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE) and save the confirmation. For more on making opt-outs stick, see our guide to opting out of debt-collector contact — the same documentation principles apply.
3. Register on the Do Not Call Registry at donotcall.gov or 1-888-382-1222. Registration is free and permanent; telemarketers get up to 31 days to stop. Details in our TCPA rights guide.
4. Log the pattern. One text is rarely a case; a pattern after an opt-out is. Note every message after your STOP.
5. Report the spam. Forward junk texts to 7726 (SPAM) — your carrier uses the reports to block senders, and the report trail helps document the pattern.
6. Call a lawyer before the texts stop mattering. TCPA claims have a four-year filing window, but the legal landscape is shifting under your feet — the sooner the claim is evaluated, the better the pleading.

What Each Illegal Text Can Be Worth

Under the federal TCPA, § 227(b)(3) provides $500 per violation, trebled to $1,500 for willful or knowing violations. Under the SCTPPA, it's $1,000 per violation — up to $5,000 willful — plus attorneys' fees. And if the texter is a debt collector, the FDCPA adds its own damages plus mandatory fee-shifting under § 1692k. The exact mix depends on your facts — which is why the evaluation matters.

One practical note on the SCTPPA: § 37-21-80(D) lets these claims be filed in magistrates court so long as the amount claimed stays within that court's jurisdictional limits — meaning a straightforward unwanted-texts case doesn't have to start in circuit court to be worth bringing.

Case details for the 2026 district-court decisions discussed above are drawn from published legal-industry summaries, as the slip opinions were not yet publicly indexed at the time of writing. The Steidinger analysis is drawn from the Seventh Circuit's published opinion. This post is for information only and is not legal advice.

Don't Let a Legal Technicality Decide Your Case

The "texts aren't calls" argument is a defense lawyer's motion, not a final answer — and in South Carolina, the state's own law covers texts explicitly. Whether you have leverage depends on your facts: who texted you, what they sent, whether you opted out, and whether they kept going. Contact Traywick Law Offices for a free consultation, or start with our legal-opinion intake — we'll tell you in a few minutes which claims fit and what they're worth.