The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibits businesses from using "autodialer" technology to send unsolicited text messages to potential customers. Outfield Brew House ("Outfield") uses software known as "Txt Line" to send messages to former and potential customers. Txt Line randomly selects telephone numbers from a pre-existing database and sends promotional text messages on behalf of Outfield to those numbers. Colby Beal, a recipient of text messages from Outfield, brought suit alleging that Outfield's use of Txt Line violated the TCPA because the software fell under the definition of an autodialer.
On appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court and held that Txt Line does not count as an autodialer. The TCPA defines an autodialer as "equipment which has the capacity . . . to produce telephone numbers to be called using a random or sequential number generator.” The parties disputed the meaning of the term "produce" and whether Txt Line's process of selecting telephone numbers constitutes "production." Looking to the ordinary meaning of “produce,” the court held that the term does not encompass "selection." The panel noted that the common definition of "produce" along with the context of the term's use in the TCPA indicated that "produce" has a meaning more akin to "generate" than "select." Thus, the court held, the term autodialer refers to those devices which generate random telephone numbers—it does not encompass software such as Txt Live which only selects telephone numbers from pre-existing databases.