Court Won’t Let Autodialers Off the Hook

A California law that makes it illegal to use an automatic dialing device to send recorded phone messages was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday.

The state law that was challenged by Orange businessman William Bland is part of the public utilities code that requires companies making phone solicitations to have a live person on the line. If a resident consents, a solicitor can play a recorded message, but calling with “an unsolicited prerecorded message” is illegal.

Violators can be fined or have their phone service cut off.

Prerecorded phone messages reached their annoying peak in the early 1990s when, according to a congressional study, 180,000 solicitors nationwide were using autodialing devices to call 7 million homes per day.

California is one of 43 states that has passed laws against automatic dialing devices. A federal law also bans such calls across state lines.

“Hopefully we have put this to rest and people won’t be bothered anymore,” said Ronald A. Reiter, deputy state attorney general in Los Angeles.

The National Assn. of Telecomputer Operators had challenged the state law on behalf of Bland, owner of Dry-Tech Carpet Cleaning in Orange.

Starting in 1988, Bland used two automatic dialing devices that made calls 12 hours a day. When the phones were answered, his machines played a brief recording that touted the benefits of carpet cleaning and urged listeners to press a button and leave their name and phone number.

A homeowner did just that. The response resulted in a contact by Bland’s business, and the irritated homeowner filed a complaint with the phone company. Bland was then told that he must stop using recorded messages or face a loss of his phone service.

Instead, Bland filed a lawsuit in 1994 contending the state ban violated his free-speech rights. His claim relied on a 1943 Supreme Court decision that struck down city laws against door-to-door soliciting.

But a federal judge in Los Angeles and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the state ban on recorded phone messages, noting that Bland retained the right to call customers with a live person on the line.

That approach is too expensive for a small business, said Los Angeles attorney Rex S. Heinke in his appeal to the Supreme Court on Bland’s behalf. He asserted the state law violates the 1st Amendment because it “effectively forecloses an entire method of communication.”

The justices, however, dismissed the appeal without comment in Bland vs. Fessler.

Bland, 35, said he doesn’t like receiving telephone calls from solicitors any more than the next person who’s had dinner interrupted by a persistent salesperson pitching a product.

“I don’t get a charge out of interrupting someone’s dinner,” Bland said. “It was a quick, electronic message that lasted all of 10 seconds. If you were out to tie up someone’s phone, I’m sure you could do it a lot more effectively with a live person.”

Savage reported from Washington and Johnson from Orange County.