Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-511_p86b.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

FACEBOOK, INC. v. DUGUID 

Opinion of the Court 

B 
The statutory context confirms that the autodialer defi-
nition excludes equipment that does not “us[e] a random or
sequential  number  generator.”    47  U. S. C.  §227(a)(1)(A). 
Consider the TCPA’s restrictions on the use of autodialers. 
As previously noted, §227(b)(1) makes it unlawful to use an
autodialer to call certain “emergency telephone line[s]” and
lines  “for  which  the  called  party  is  charged  for  the  call.” 
§227(b)(1)(A).  It also makes it unlawful to use an autodialer 
“in such a way that two or more telephone lines of a multi-
line business are engaged simultaneously.”  §227(b)(1)(D).
These  prohibitions  target  a  unique  type  of  telemarketing 
equipment that risks dialing emergency lines randomly or 
tying up all the sequentially numbered lines at a single en-
tity.

Expanding the definition of an autodialer to encompass 
any equipment that merely stores and dials telephone num-
bers  would  take  a  chainsaw  to  these  nuanced  problems
when Congress meant to use a scalpel.  Duguid’s interpre-
tation of an autodialer would capture virtually all modern
cell phones, which have the capacity to “store . . . telephone
numbers to be called” and “dial such numbers.”  §227(a)(1).
The TCPA’s liability provisions, then, could affect ordinary 
cell phone owners in the course of commonplace usage, such
as  speed  dialing  or  sending  automated  text  message  re-
sponses.  See §227(b)(3) (authorizing a $500 fine per viola-
tion,  increased  to  $1,500  if  the  sender  acted  “willfully”  or 

—————— 
suggests that such canons have no role to play in statutory interpreta-
tion, or that resolving difficult interpretive questions is a simple matter
of applying the “common understanding” of those “familiar with the Eng-
lish language,” post, at 2–3, we disagree.  Difficult ambiguities in statu-
tory text will inevitably arise, despite the best efforts of legislators writ-
ing  in  “English  prose,”  post,  at  4.  Courts  should  approach  these 
interpretive problems methodically, using traditional tools of statutory 
interpretation, in order to confirm their assumptions about the “common
understanding” of words.