Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-511_p86b.pdf
Page Number: 12

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2021) 

9 

“knowingly”).6 

Opinion of the Court 

III 

Duguid’s  counterarguments  cannot  overcome  the  clear 
commands of §227(a)(1)(A)’s text and the statutory context.
The crux of Duguid’s argument is that the autodialer defi-
nition calls for a construction that accords with the “sense” 
of the text.  Brief for Respondents 11, and n. 3.  It makes 
the most “sense,” Duguid insists, to apply the phrase “using 
a random or sequential number generator” to modify only 
“produce,”  which,  unlike  the  verb  “store,”  is  closely  con-
nected  to  the  noun  “generator.”    Dictionary  definitions  of 
“generator,” for instance, regularly include the word “pro-
duce,” which carries a very different meaning than “store.” 
Duguid also claims that, at the time of the TCPA’s enact-
ment, the technical meaning of a “random number genera-
tor” invoked ways of producing numbers, not means of stor-
ing them.

Perhaps  Duguid’s  interpretive  approach  would  have
some appeal if applying the traditional tools of interpreta-
tion led to a “linguistically impossible” or contextually im-
plausible outcome.  Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 584 
U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 8); see also Advocate Health 
Care  Network  v.  Stapleton,  581  U. S.  ___,  ___  (2017)  (slip 
op., at 11) (noting that a “sense of inconceivability” might 
“urg[e] readers to discard usual rules of interpreting text”). 
Duguid makes a valiant effort to prove as much, but ulti-

—————— 

6 Duguid contends that ordinary cell phones are not autodialers under 
his  interpretation  because  they  cannot  dial  phone  numbers  automati-
cally  and  instead  rely  on  human  intervention.   But  all  devices  require 
some human intervention, whether it takes the form of programming a 
cell phone to respond automatically to texts received while in “do not dis-
turb”  mode  or  commanding  a  computer  program  to  produce  and  dial 
phone numbers at random.  We decline to interpret the TCPA as requir-
ing such a difficult line-drawing exercise around how much automation 
is too much.