The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, based on the TCPA telemarketing consent requirements of the Federal Communications Commission, levies a \"written\" Fifth Circuit fee in accordance with the requirements.

US – March 2026 In 2012, the Federal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) revised itsrules under theTelephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) In a seminal decision in the world of the TCPA, the 5th Circuitpanel followed the Supreme Court directive to “interpret themeaning of Congress’s enacted text according to ordinaryprincipals of statutory interpretation, without deference to an agency’s reading.” Reading the statutory language, the panelnoted that “the statute provides no basis for concluding thattelemarketing calls require prior expresswrittenconsent…. Whether Sovereign Pest’s pre-recorded calls to Bradford Prerecorded calls made to cellphones for telemarketingpurposes required more than just “prior express consent”;rather, the called party must have provided “prior expresswritten consent” as defined in the rules. So while acustomer’s provision of their cellphone number or an oral OK But, of course, this is but one of 11 federal courts of appeals.And the 5th Circuit, relying onBlack’s Law Dictionary, ofcourse, provided its view of Congress’ meaning of “expressconsent” as “positive, direct, unequivocal consent, requiringno inference or implication to supply its meaning.” Look for Over the years, the federal courts, under US Supreme Courtprecedent, have deferred to this regulatory “add-on” by theFCC, which nowhere appeared in the statutory language ofthe law itself. However, the current Supreme Court repealedthe underpinnings of that deference doctrine. Further, it made Contact That brings us toRadley Bradford v. Sovereign Pest Controlof TX, Inc., a recent decision of the US Court of Appeals for Paul BesozziSenior Partner, Washington DCT +1 202 457 5292E paul.besozzi@squirepb.com the 5th Circuit. Mr. Radford contracted pest control services and provided his cellphone number to Sovereign. Over theyears, the company used prerecorded calls to contact him atthat number about renewing his contract and he did so fourtimes. But for whatever reason, Mr. Bradford decided to sueSovereign under the TCPA, claiming that all those renewal-related calls were telemarketing calls and he had never