In 2009 and 2010, a McKesson subsidiary sent unsolicited fax ads to medical practices. A chiropractic office sued in 2014 and tried to bring the whole class with it, including everyone who got those faxes through an online fax service instead of a beige machine in the back office. Then the FCC weighed in on a petition filed by a company that had nothing to do with the case, and said an online fax service isn’t a “telephone facsimile machine.” The trial court decided it had to follow that ruling. The class fell apart. What was left was 12 faxes and $6,000.
On June 20, 2025, the Supreme Court said the trial court never had to follow the FCC at all.
McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025), is a fax case, and it reads like a footnote in administrative law. It isn’t. For anyone suing over robocalls or texts in Minnesota, or getting sued over them, it moved the fight from the FCC’s orders back to the words of the statute. And the Eighth Circuit, which covers Minnesota, had been on the other side.
What the Court actually held
Justice Kavanaugh’s opening is two sentences:
In civil enforcement proceedings under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, are district courts bound by the Federal Communications Commission’s interpretation of the Act? The answer is no.
Id. at 149. The vote was 6–3.
The problem was the Hobbs Act, a 1950 statute that gives the federal courts of appeals “exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in part), or to determine the validity of” final FCC orders. 28 U.S.C. § 2342(1). If you want to attack an FCC order head-on, you file a petition in a court of appeals within 60 days. 606 U.S. at 152. For years, a lot of courts read that to mean that once the 60 days ran, everybody else was stuck with the order, including the judge in a private lawsuit years later.
The Court said no. The rule it announced:
District courts are not bound by the agency’s interpretation, but instead must determine the meaning of the law under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation.
Id. at 155. And it was explicit that private suits count. “[E]nforcement proceedings”, as the Court used the term, include “civil suits brought by private parties alleging a defendant’s violation of a statute, regulation, or order.” Id. at 153 n.1. That’s a TCPA class action. That’s a Minnesotan suing over prerecorded calls.
The Court’s theory is a default rule, and it’s blunt about it: “When Congress wants to bar a district court in an enforcement proceeding from reviewing an agency’s interpretation of a statute, Congress can and must say so.” Id. at 159. The Clean Water Act says so. The Clean Air Act says so. The Hobbs Act doesn’t.
The Court sent the case back without deciding whether the FCC got online faxes right. That comes up again at the end.
Minnesota’s federal appeals court used to say the opposite
In May 2013 the Eighth Circuit decided Nack v. Walburg, a private TCPA class action over a single fax that lacked opt-out language the plaintiff said an FCC regulation required. The defendant wanted to argue the regulation was invalid. The court wouldn’t hear it:
We hold, therefore, that the Hobbs Act generally precludes our court from holding the contested regulation invalid outside the statutory procedure mandated by Congress.
Nack v. Walburg, 715 F.3d 680, 686 (8th Cir. 2013). The court’s worry was that letting it happen in private litigation would “permit an end-run” around the review Congress set up.
That’s the position McLaughlin rejected. Justice Kagan’s dissent says as much: “every court of appeals to address the question before us has rejected the position the majority takes”, and her list includes the Eighth Circuit, citing Nack. 606 U.S. at 177 & n.4 (Kagan, J., dissenting). The majority never mentions Nack. It didn’t have to.
So from May 2013 to June 2025, a federal judge in Minnesota hearing a TCPA case worked under a rule that treated an FCC order on the statute as close to the last word. Since June 20, 2025, it’s an argument.
What’s up for grabs now
Every FCC interpretation of § 227 that a district court used to treat as binding is now something the court decides for itself, with “appropriate respect” to the agency. That covers a lot of ground. Whether an online fax service is a fax machine. Whether a text message is a “call” in a particular subsection. What it takes to revoke consent.
Take that last one. In 2024 the FCC adopted a rule that a person may revoke consent “using any reasonable method to clearly express a desire not to receive further calls or text messages from the caller or sender”, and that a revocation must be honored “within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request.” 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(10); 89 Fed. Reg. 15756 (Mar. 5, 2024). The FCC announced an April 11, 2025 effective date for that paragraph. 89 Fed. Reg. 82518 (Oct. 11, 2024). It’s in the Code of Federal Regulations as I write this. The TCPA’s private right of action reaches violations of “the regulations prescribed under” subsection (b), so a rule like that matters in a lawsuit. After McLaughlin, my reading is that a defendant can now ask a Minnesota federal judge to decide whether a rule like that actually matches the statute, rather than being told the question closed when the 60 days ran. Whether that argument wins is another matter.
And this cuts both ways. In July 2026 the Seventh Circuit held that the TCPA’s do-not-call private right of action, § 227(c)(5), doesn’t cover text messages. “Because we conclude that § 227(c)(5) does not permit plaintiffs to sue for the receipt of unwanted texts, we affirm.” Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, No. 25-2398, slip op. at 2 (7th Cir. July 14, 2026). The plaintiffs pointed to the FCC’s treatment of texts as calls. The court’s answer: “Even if it did, we aren’t bound by the FCC’s interpretation.” Id. at 9 (citing McLaughlin, 606 U.S. at 168). The Seventh Circuit doesn’t bind Minnesota. But if you’re the one getting the texts, that’s the part to understand: the FCC’s consumer-friendly readings are up for grabs too.
What doesn’t move
Plenty. If you’re getting robocalls in Minnesota, most of what protects you is right where it was.
The statute didn’t move. The $500 per violation is Congress’s number, not the FCC’s. A person may recover actual monetary loss or “$500 in damages for each such violation,” whichever is greater, and the court may, in its discretion, increase the award up to three times for a willful or knowing violation. 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3).
Neither did the Supreme Court’s own readings of it. In Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid the Court decided for itself what an autodialer is: “We hold that a necessary feature of an autodialer under § 227(a)(1)(A) is the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to either store or produce phone numbers to be called.” 592 U.S. 395, 409 (2021). That binds every court. I walked through what’s left of the autodialer claim after Duguid at /news/tcpa-robocall-traceback-why-attribution-fails/.
Some FCC orders can still bind, too. The majority put two limits in a footnote. A party that challenged an order in a court of appeals and lost “may be barred by ordinary estoppel or preclusion principles” from trying again. And if the court of appeals that upheld an order sits over the district court hearing the later case, the district court “may be bound under principles of vertical stare decisis to adhere to the court of appeals holding.” 606 U.S. at 155 n.3. So if the Eighth Circuit itself upholds an FCC order on direct review, a Minnesota federal judge may still be stuck with it.
None of this came out of nowhere, either. In June 2024 the Court overruled Chevron and said courts “must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA requires.” Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 412 (2024). McLaughlin took that idea and made sure the Hobbs Act wasn’t a back door around it.
And Minnesota’s own law didn’t move at all. The FCC doesn’t interpret Minnesota statutes, so nothing about McLaughlin changes them. Subject to the exceptions in § 325E.27(b), Minnesota bars automatic dialing-announcing devices without consent or a live operator, § 325E.27(a), and bars their use, and any commercial telephone solicitation, “before 9:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m.” § 325E.30. A violation carries the § 8.31 remedies, including a private right of action, and the Attorney General can also seek a civil penalty that “must not exceed $50,000.” § 325E.31(a)–(b). I covered those statutes, and which Minnesota robocall law expired in 2012, at /news/minnesota-robocall-telemarketing-law-325e/.
And one I’d flag for any fax case. Minnesota has its own junk-fax statute, § 325E.395, and it doesn’t use the federal “telephone facsimile machine” definition at all. It regulates a “facsimile transmission” of unsolicited advertising. It’s an opt-out law, not a ban: a business may send one only if it sets up a toll-free number recipients can call to stop them, prints that number and a mailing address in at least 9-point type, and stops when asked. A violation carries the § 8.31 remedies, including a private right of action. § 325E.395, subds. 1, 3. The federal fight over whether an online fax service is a fax machine is a fight over federal words. Minnesota’s statute uses different ones.
The § 8.31 route has a limit of its own that has nothing to do with the FCC, and it decides a lot of these cases. I explained it at /news/minnesota-private-attorney-general-831/. The state can also sue in federal court for a pattern or practice of unlawful calls to Minnesotans under the TCPA itself, for $500 per violation, and up to three times that for a willful or knowing violation. 47 U.S.C. § 227(g)(1)–(2).
The dissent’s warning
Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, opened with a hypothetical about a company shipping plutonium by air in violation of a nuclear-safety rule, and then put the majority’s rule in four words: “Today, the Court picks the second option: ship first, litigate later.” 606 U.S. at 169 (Kagan, J., dissenting).
Her concern was finality. Under the Hobbs Act, challenges get resolved in one court of appeals, early, and then everyone knows the rules. “A strict 60-day time limit, meant to give stability to the administrative sphere, now becomes a forever-provision, putting everything always up for grabs.” Id. at 182. And she named the people who’d get hurt: “Those who complied with the old rules (for example, who took advantage of the FCC’s safe harbor for certain faxes) may become in a moment exposed to liability.” Id. She also pointed out that the agency may not even be in the room, since after the ruling “a court could sustain such a challenge without the FCC having so much as a chance to object.” Id. at 183.
She’s not wrong about the cost. If you run a calling program built around an FCC order, you can’t treat that order as a safe harbor anymore. You can still argue the order is right, and you may win. It just isn’t a guarantee.
And then McLaughlin lost
Back to the fax case. On remand, the district court in California did exactly what the Supreme Court told it to do. It read § 227 itself, found the statute “unambiguous on its face,” gave the FCC’s various orders whatever respect they earned, and called the Amerifactors ruling “the most persuasive decision” among them. True Health Chiropractic, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., No. 13-cv-02219-HSG, Dkt. No. 589, at 12, 17 n.14 (N.D. Cal. May 22, 2026). Its conclusion: an online fax service isn’t a telephone facsimile machine under the statute. The renewed motion for class certification was denied. Id. at 18. The court confirmed final disposition of the case on July 1, 2026. Dkt. No. 597. The plaintiffs have appealed to the Ninth Circuit. McLaughlin Chiropractic Assocs. v. McKesson Corp., No. 26-4045 (9th Cir. docketed June 24, 2026).
So the plaintiffs won the right to argue the statute in the Supreme Court, then argued it in the district court and got the same answer the FCC gave in 2019. McLaughlin sued in 2014, the case is back on appeal in 2026, and the online-fax class stands about where it stood before the Supreme Court took the case.
That’s the real lesson of McLaughlin for a Minnesota TCPA case. It doesn’t make the FCC wrong. It makes the FCC an argument instead of a wall. Some of those arguments will win. Plenty will lose. The litigants who do well will be the ones who read § 227 closely, because that’s now the text the judge reads.
I couldn’t find an Eighth Circuit or District of Minnesota decision applying McLaughlin before this article’s date. I searched CourtListener and the federal courts collection on GovInfo by case name, by citation, and by “Hobbs Act”; CourtListener carries no District of Minnesota opinions for that period, and GovInfo carries only what the court sends it. So in Minnesota, at least in the published record, no court has taken the first swing yet.
The FCC had a better day at the Supreme Court in June 2026, on fines, which I wrote about at /news/fcc-att-location-data-penalties-minnesota/. On the meaning of the robocall statute, the agency is now one more voice in the courtroom. It’s not the judge. For years it was close.
If that sounds like more work for every lawyer on a TCPA case, it is. I wrote about the other pressures squeezing ordinary people out of court at /news/the-courthouse-door-is-narrowing/. Cases that turn on statutory interpretation instead of a citation to an FCC order are usually more expensive to bring and to defend. That cost lands on somebody.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers in TCPA, debt collection, credit reporting, and consumer fraud matters in Minnesota state and federal court. If you’re getting prerecorded calls, texts, or junk faxes you didn’t agree to, or calls after you asked them to stop, I can tell you which statute reaches them and whether the record supports a claim. Read about our general litigation practice, then send us a message.
Sources: McLaughlin Chiropractic Assocs., Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146, 149–52, 153 n.1, 155 & n.3, 159, 169 (2025); id. at 169, 177 & n.4, 182–83 (Kagan, J., dissenting); Nack v. Walburg, 715 F.3d 680, 686 (8th Cir. 2013); Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, 592 U.S. 395, 409 (2021); Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 412 (2024); Steidinger v. Blackstone Med. Servs., No. 25-2398, slip op. at 2, 9 (7th Cir. July 14, 2026); True Health Chiropractic, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., No. 13-cv-02219-HSG, Dkt. No. 589, at 12, 17 n.14, 18 (N.D. Cal. May 22, 2026), and Dkt. No. 597 (N.D. Cal. July 1, 2026), appeal docketed, No. 26-4045 (9th Cir. June 24, 2026); 28 U.S.C. § 2342(1) (exclusive jurisdiction of courts of appeals); 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(3) (telephone facsimile machine), (b)(3) (private right of action; $500 per violation; up to treble for willful or knowing violations), (c)(5) (private right of action for do-not-call violations), (g)(1)–(2) (actions by states; exclusive federal jurisdiction); 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(10) (revocation of consent by any reasonable method; ten business days), as in effect Oct. 9, 2026; Strengthening the Ability of Consumers To Stop Robocalls, 89 Fed. Reg. 15756 (Mar. 5, 2024) (FCC 24-24); 89 Fed. Reg. 82518 (Oct. 11, 2024) (effective date of § 64.1200(a)(10)–(11)); Minn. Stat. § 325E.27(a) (automatic dialing-announcing devices; consent or live operator); Minn. Stat. § 325E.30 (9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.); Minn. Stat. § 325E.31(a)–(b) (§ 8.31 remedies; Attorney General civil penalty not exceeding $50,000); Minn. Stat. § 325E.395, subds. 1, 3 (unsolicited fax advertising; toll-free opt-out; 9-point notice; § 8.31 remedies); Minn. Stat. § 8.31, subd. 3a (private remedies). This article is general commentary on federal and Minnesota law and published decisions. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied.