Opinion ID: 4542847
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Sandusky Decision

Text: To do so, we begin by clarifying this court’s decision in Sandusky, 788 F.3d 218. The district court’s opinion is founded on its interpretation of Sandusky, which it understood as compelling its holding that Fulton’s TCPA claim fails unless the commercial nature of the fax is evident from the face of the fax. The district court also adopted the Defendants’ argument that Sandusky requires a fax to “propose a commercial exchange between the sender and the recipient” to trigger TCPA coverage. These holdings reflect an improper understanding of Sandusky and impose undue restrictions on TCPA claims. Sandusky, a summary judgment decision, addressed two faxes sent to a chiropractor by Medco Health Solutions, a benefit manager that acted “as an intermediary between health plan sponsors (often employers) and prescription drug companies.” 788 F.3d at 220. The faxes contained notifications of certain drugs included in Medco’s “formulary,” the list of drugs available to some of the chiropractor’s patients through healthcare plans offered by one of Medco’s sponsor-clients. Id. The chiropractor brought suit under the TCPA alleging that the faxes were unsolicited advertisements. Applying summary judgment standards, we concluded that “[t]he undisputed facts in the record . . . show that each [fax] merely informed [the plaintiff] which drugs its patients might prefer, irrespective of Medco’s financial considerations.” Id. at 221. After examining the record, Sandusky found that the faxes were “not sent with hopes to make a profit, directly or indirectly, from [the plaintiff] or others similarly situated” and no “record evidence show[ed] that Medco hope[d] to attract clients or customers by sending the faxes.” Id. at 222. Instead, we determined that those faxes had a “purely informational” and “non-pecuniary” purpose and were sent as part of “a paid service already rendered not to [the plaintiff] but to Medco’s clients.” Id. Summarizing the applicable TCPA test, Sandusky held that to qualify as an unsolicited advertisement under the TCPA, a fax “must promote goods or services that are for sale, and the sender must have profit as an aim.” Id. at 223–24. Because the faxes Medco sent did not meet this definition, the TCPA was not implicated. The plaintiff in Sandusky also asked that the faxes be interpreted in the context of Medco’s previous business, a mail-order pharmacy, and Medco’s history of noncompliance with state laws when operating that pharmacy. Id. at 225. We declined to factor in this “extraneous No. 17-1380 Fulton v. Enclarity, Inc. Page 9 and speculative down-the-stream evidence” for the purpose of determining whether “Medco might financially benefit from these faxes several locks down the stream of commerce.” Id. Sandusky stands for the proposition that in this situation, an “ancillary, remote, and hypothetical economic benefit later on does not convert a noncommercial, informational communication into a commercial solicitation.” Id. at 225. But nowhere does Sandusky confine a court’s consideration of TCPA claims to the face of the challenged fax. To the contrary, Sandusky repeatedly surveyed “the record evidence” for proof of a financial benefit to Medco and, in so doing, went beyond the faces of the two faxes. Id.; see also id. at 222 (reviewing the record evidence). Sandusky also acknowledged that a fax could be an advertisement without overtly offering a product or service for sale, such as offers for free seminars that turn out to be pretext for a later solicitation. Id. at 225 (citing Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991; Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, 71 Fed. Reg. 25,967, 25,973 (May 3, 2006)). Finding a fax to be pretext for a subsequent advertising opportunity would require looking to what came after the fax. A court could not possibly resolve a claim that a fax was pretextual if it confined its evaluation to the fax itself. Sandusky thus does not entail the two requirements imposed by the district court: that the fax must propose a direct commercial transaction between the sender and the recipient and that courts are constrained to examining only the face of the fax. In contravention of such requirements, Sandusky recognizes that the fax “need not be an explicit sale offer,” that the “best ads” are sometimes not “so overt,” and then concludes that TCPA coverage is accorded where the fax is “an indirect commercial solicitation, or pretext for” such a solicitation.” Id. at 225. This understanding of the TCPA is buttressed by the text of the statute itself, which likewise lacks the requirements imposed by the district court. See 47 U.S.C. § 227. This clarification of Sandusky governs our analysis. The district court misconstrued Sandusky when it disregarded the exhibits attached to Fulton’s complaint. The exhibits are part of the record, and we may consider them when evaluating Fulton’s TCPA claim. And we may do so without converting Defendants’ motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment. Commercial Money Ctr., Inc. v. Ill. Union Ins. Co., 508 F.3d 327, 335–36 (6th Cir. 2007) (explaining that courts may consider documents “referred to in the pleadings” and “integral to No. 17-1380 Fulton v. Enclarity, Inc. Page 10 the claims . . . without converting a motion to dismiss into one for summary judgment”). Under this circuit’s precedent, “documents attached to the pleadings become part of the pleadings and may be considered on a motion to dismiss.” Id. at 335 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(c)). Indeed, Defendants do not challenge the authenticity of Fulton’s exhibits, having conceded that their contents may be accepted as facts. Our review of Defendants’ motion to dismiss properly includes the exhibits Fulton attached to the complaint.