Susan Drazen v. Mr. Juan Pinto
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Susan Drazen v. Mr. Juan Pinto, 74 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2023)
Susan Drazen v. Mr. Juan Pinto
Opinion
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[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 21-10199
____________________
SUSAN DRAZEN,
on behalf of herself and other persons similarly situated,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
Godaddy.com, LLC,
a Delaware Limited Liability Company,
Defendant-Appellee,
versus
MR. JUAN ENRIQUE PINTO,
Movant-Appellant.
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-00563-KD-B
____________________
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, WILSON, JORDAN,
ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, GRANT, LUCK,
BRASHER, ABUDU and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges. ∗
ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion for the unani-
mous Court.
JORDAN, Circuit Judge, and NEWSOM, Circuit Judge, filed a concur-
ring opinion.
BRANCH, Circuit Judge, filed a concurring opinion.
ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:
A case is not a “Case[]” (or a “Controvers[y]) if the plaintiff
lacks standing. And we can’t hear matters that aren’t “Cases” or
“Controversies.” Under Article III of the Constitution, we lack ju-
risdiction over them.
So to evaluate our jurisdiction, today’s case requires us to
determine whether a person who receives an unwanted, auto-
mated telemarketing text message has standing to sue the sender.
To establish standing, a plaintiff must show that she has suffered an
∗ Senior Circuit Judge Tjoflat elected to participate in this decision, pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 46(c). Judge Lagoa did not participate in this decision, as she is
recused.
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 3
injury in fact, which the defendant likely caused and which a favor-
able decision can likely redress. This case zooms in on standing’s
injury-in-fact component—a requirement that demands, among
other things, that a plaintiff’s injury be concrete. The concreteness
requirement ensures that the plaintiff has a real stake in the litiga-
tion. Only when a plaintiff has that concrete stake in the lawsuit
can she bring her claim in federal court.
Obvious concrete harms include physical injury and finan-
cial loss. But intangible harms—an invasion of privacy, for exam-
ple—may also satisfy the concreteness requirement. Because Con-
gress is well-suited to identify such harms, we find Congress’s judg-
ment instructive when it creates a cause of action for an intangible
harm. But Congress’s judgment is not necessarily dispositive.
Once Congress identifies a harm by enacting a statute with a cause
of action to redress that harm, we consider whether the statutory
harm shares a “close relationship” with a harm that has tradition-
ally provided a basis for a lawsuit in English or American courts. If
it does, then the plaintiff’s alleged intangible harm satisfies stand-
ing’s concreteness requirement.
The question at the core of this appeal is whether the plain-
tiffs who received a single unwanted, illegal telemarketing text
message suffered a concrete injury. To answer that question, we
consider whether the harm from receiving such a text message
shares a close relationship with a traditional harm. The plaintiffs
contend that it does—namely, with the harm that underlies a
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4 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
lawsuit for the common-law claim of intrusion upon seclusion. We
agree.
Both harms reflect an intrusion into the peace and quiet in a
realm that is private and personal. A plaintiff who receives an un-
wanted, illegal text message suffers a concrete injury. Because Dra-
zen has endured a concrete injury, we remand this matter to the
panel to consider the rest of the appeal.
I.
A. District Court Proceedings
In August 2019, Suzan Drazen filed a class action against Go-
Daddy. The putative class alleged that the web-hosting company
embarked on an unlawful telemarketing campaign. According to
the complaint, for about two years, between November 2014 and
December 2016, GoDaddy used a prohibited automatic telephone
dialing system1 (“ATDS”) “to make promotional calls and text mes-
sages attempting to sell additional or more expensive services and
products and/or to contact individuals who are no longer custom-
ers.” In other words, the complaint asserted that GoDaddy vio-
lated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”).
See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii).
1An “automatic telephone dialing system” refers to equipment with the ca-
pacity “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random
or sequential number generator;” and the capacity “to dial such numbers.”47
U.S.C. § 227(a)(1).
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Meanwhile, Jason Bennett was litigating the same claim in
the District of Arizona. See Bennett v. GoDaddy.Com, LLC, Case No.
2:16-cv-03908 (D. Ariz. 2016). And John Herrick filed a third case
in the District of Arizona. See Herrick v. GoDaddy.com, LLC, Case
No. 2:16-cv-00254 (D. Ariz. 2016).
The district court in Drazen’s case eventually consolidated
her case with Bennett’s. And after Drazen and Bennett eventually
reached a settlement agreement with GoDaddy, Herrick’s case was
“incorporated into and resolved by” the same settlement agree-
ment.
Then, in January 2020, Drazen filed an unopposed motion
for preliminary approval of that agreement. The settlement agree-
ment defined the class to include “all persons within the United
States who received a call or text message to his or her cellular
phone from” GoDaddy between November 2014 and December
2016.
In response to this motion, the district court issued a sua
sponte order “to examine its own jurisdiction.” In that order, the
court cited our decision in Salcedo v. Hanna, 936 F.3d 1162 (11th Cir.
2019), which held that the “receipt of a single text message” is not
a concrete injury. Id. at 1172. Because the parties’ settlement de-
fined the class to include people who received only one text mes-
sage, the district court ordered the parties to brief “how this case is
distinguishable from Salcedo v. Hanna.”
In their briefing, the parties proposed the following class def-
inition, subject to certain exclusions that are not relevant here:
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6 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
All persons within the United States to whom, from
November 4, 2014[,] through December 31, 2016, De-
fendant placed a voice or text message call to their cel-
lular telephone pursuant to an outbound campaign
facilitated by the web-based software application used
by 3Seventy, Inc., or the software programs and plat-
forms that comprise the Cisco Unified Communica-
tions Manager.
GoDaddy determined that this “proposed settlement class includes
approximately 1.26 million individuals.” And according to Go-
Daddy, of that group, about 7% received only one text message.
The balance of the class received either one phone call or some
combination of phone calls and text messages. As for the remedy
for class members, the proposed settlement agreement offered “the
choice between a $150 Voucher or a $35 cash award.”
Upon considering the parties’ briefing, the district court con-
cluded that only the named plaintiffs must have standing. And be-
cause Herrick received only one text, the district court determined,
based on Salcedo, that he was disqualified from being a named
plaintiff. As for the roughly 91,000 other class members who also
received only one text and therefore lacked a viable claim in this
Circuit under Salcedo, the district court noted that “this is a nation-
wide settlement” and opined that those class members “do have a
viable claim in their respective Circuit.” For that reason, the district
court reasoned that GoDaddy could “settle those claims in this
class action” even though those litigants’ claims were “meritless” in
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 7
this Circuit. 2 And if the parties agreed to remove Herrick as a class
representative, the district court said, it would approve the pro-
posed settlement agreement.
Class counsel then moved for $10,500,000 in fees—equal to
30% of the total $35 million settlement funds—and $105,410.51 in
costs. The district court approved a fee award of $8,500,000, as well
as an award of costs. Beyond that, the court awarded $5,000 each
to Drazen, Bennett, and Herrick.
Objector-Appellant Juan Enrique Pinto then filed an objec-
tion and moved to reconsider the fee award. He made two argu-
ments. First, he objected that the district court awarded fees to
class counsel twenty days before the court’s purported objection
deadline. Second, he claimed that the parties’ settlement was a
“coupon settlement” under 28 U.S.C. § 1712(e) of the Class Action
Fairness Act because GoDaddy class members could select Go-
Daddy vouchers as their recompense. 3 The upshot of Pinto’s
2 We disagree. To begin, it’s a misnomer to describe a litigant’s claim as “mer-
itless” because she lacks standing under our precedent. On the contrary, a
dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction does not bar the plaintiff from
pressing that same claim in another court where subject-matter jurisdiction
exists. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 20(1)(a) (Am. L. Inst. 1982).
In addition, it’s worth emphasizing that district courts in this Circuit must ap-
ply our caselaw when addressing issues of federal law. See, e.g., McGinley v.
Houston, 361 F.3d 1328, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004). In any case, our ruling today
moots this issue.
3 See 28 U.S.C. § 1712(a) (“If a proposed settlement in a class action provides
for a recovery of coupons to a class member, the portion of any attorney's fee
award to class counsel that is attributable to the award of the coupons shall be
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8 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
argument that the GoDaddy vouchers are subject to the Class Ac-
tion Fairness Act is that, if he’s right, a more complicated, and less
lucrative, method of computing class counsel’s award would apply.
See id. § 1712(a), (e).
Addressing Pinto’s first argument—that the district court
prematurely awarded fees—the district court amended its order on
fees “to correct and clarify that any assessment of attorneys’ fees
and costs were preliminary and subject to final review at the final
approval hearing.” And as it turned out, after that hearing, the
court reconsidered its preliminary fee award and instead approved
“attorneys’ fees totaling 20% of the Settlement Fund, $7,000,000.”
The court then overruled Pinto’s objections and approved the set-
tlement agreement. In overruling Pinto’s objections, the court said
that “Pinto correctly points out that the ‘Eleventh Circuit has yet
to weigh in on what it deems a coupon’ and ‘coupon’ is also not
defined by CAFA.” But ultimately, the court held that the settle-
ment agreement did not involve “a coupon settlement as contem-
plated by CAFA.”
based on the value to class members of the coupons that are redeemed.”); id. §
1712(e) (“In a proposed settlement under which class members would be
awarded coupons, the court may approve the proposed settlement only after
a hearing to determine whether, and making a written finding that, the settle-
ment is fair, reasonable, and adequate for class members. The court, in its dis-
cretion, may also require that a proposed settlement agreement provide for
the distribution of a portion of the value of unclaimed coupons to 1 or more
charitable or governmental organizations, as agreed to by the parties. The dis-
tribution and redemption of any proceeds under this subsection shall not be
used to calculate attorneys’ fees under this section.”).
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 9
B. Circuit Court Proceedings
Pinto then appealed, focusing solely on CAFA issues and the
district court’s approval of the class settlement. But the panel of
this Court that was assigned the appeal did not address those argu-
ments.
Rather, the panel dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.
In the process, it noted the Supreme Court’s admonition: “‘Every
class member must have Article III standing in order to recover in-
dividual damages.’” Drazen v. Pinto, 41 F.4th 1354, 1360 (11th Cir.
2022) (quoting TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2204–05,
2208 (2021)). Then, citing Salcedo, the panel held “that the class
definition does not meet Article III standing requirements.” Id. at
1359. As the panel explained, under Salcedo, “a single unwanted
text message is not sufficient to meet the concrete injury require-
ment for standing.” Id. at 1362. “So,” the panel concluded, “the
class definition cannot stand to the extent that it allows standing for
individuals who received a single text message from GoDaddy.” Id.
As a result, the panel “vacate[d] the District Court’s decision to
grant final approval of the settlement and remand[ed] to give the
parties an opportunity to revise the class definition.” Id. at 1359. 4
Plaintiff-Appellant Drazen then moved for rehearing en
banc, urging us “to reevaluate the Salcedo holding and to clarify the
4 The panel declined to decide “whether a single cellphone call is sufficient to
meet the concrete injury requirement” and instead instructed the parties to
“redefine the class with the benefit of TransUnion and its common-law ana-
logue analysis” on remand. Id. at 1363.
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10 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
law regarding the elements necessary to pursue a TCPA claim.”
We granted that motion.
II.
We review de novo the threshold jurisdictional question of
whether the plaintiffs enjoy standing to sue. Muransky v. Godiva
Chocolatier, Inc., 979 F.3d 917, 923 (11th Cir. 2020) (en banc).
III.
Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts to decid-
ing “Cases” and “Controversies.” U.S. Const. art III, § 2. That “lim-
itation ‘is founded in concern about the proper—and properly lim-
ited—role of the courts in a democratic society.’” Summers v. Earth
Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 492–93 (2009) (quoting Warth v. Seldin,422 U.S. 490, 498
(1975)). “The doctrine of standing is one of several
doctrines that reflect this fundamental limitation.” Id. at 493.
To enjoy standing, a plaintiff must satisfy three require-
ments. First, a plaintiff must establish that she suffered an injury in
fact “that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent.”
TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2203. Second, she must show that the de-
fendant “likely caused” her injury. Id. And third, she must show
that a favorable judicial decision can likely redress her injury. Id.
This case hinges on the concreteness requirement. “An in-
jury is concrete if it actually exists—that is, if it is ‘real, and not
abstract.’” Hunstein v. Preferred Collection & Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 48
F.4th 1236, 1242 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc) (quoting Spokeo, Inc. v.
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 11
Robbins, 578 U.S. 330, 340 (2016)). “The most obvious concrete
harm is a physical injury or financial loss.” Id. at 1243.
But intangible harms can satisfy Article III’s concreteness re-
quirement, too. Id. “Congress is ‘well positioned to identify’ those
intangible harms.” Id. (quoting Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341). So when
Congress identifies an intangible harm by enacting a law with a
cause of action to redress that harm, “we find its judgment ‘instruc-
tive and important.’” Ibid. Yet at the same time, Congress “may
not simply enact an injury into existence.” Id. Nor can Congress
use “‘its lawmaking power to transform something that is not re-
motely harmful into something that is.’” Id. (quoting TransUnion,
141 S. Ct. at 2205). “So congressional judgment, though instruc-
tive, is not enough.” Id.
At bottom, standing “is a doctrine rooted in the traditional
understanding of a case or controversy.” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 338.
So once Congress has identified an intangible harm, the question
becomes whether that “‘harm has a close relationship to a harm
that has traditionally been regarded as providing a basis for a law-
suit in English or American courts.’” Hunstein, 48 F.4th at 1243
(quoting Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341).
The Supreme Court has acknowledged the harm associated
with the common-law tort of intrusion upon seclusion as an exam-
ple of a harm “traditionally recognized as providing a basis for law-
suits in American courts.” TransUnion, 141 S. Ct. at 2204. And Dra-
zen and Pinto contend that the class members who received only
one unwanted text message from GoDaddy suffered a privacy
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12 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
invasion that shares a close relationship with the harm associated
with intrusion upon seclusion. In particular, the complaint alleges
that the class members “suffered an invasion of a legally protected
interest in privacy, which is specifically addressed and protected by
the TCPA.” 5
GoDaddy responds that the harm from receiving one un-
wanted text message lacks a close relationship to the harm under-
lying intrusion upon seclusion because an element of that com-
mon-law tort requires that the privacy invasion “be highly offensive
to a reasonable person.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B
(Am. L. Inst. 1965); see also W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser & Keeton
on the Law of Torts 855 (5th ed. 1984). And a single unwanted, illegal
text message is not. Calling someone two or three times, for exam-
ple, is insufficiently offensive to state a claim under the common-
law tort; “only when the telephone calls are repeated with such per-
sistency and frequency as to amount to a course of hounding the
plaintiff” does the intrusion rise to the degree of offensiveness that
the common law requires. Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, §
652B cmt. d. Because receiving one text message falls short of that
5 GoDaddy contends that Congress has been silent on 47 U.S.C. §
227(b)(1)(a)(iii)’s applicability to text messages. For the purposes of assessing
our jurisdiction and without deciding the merits of the TCPA claim, we disa-
gree and conclude that Congress appears to have targeted unwanted text mes-
sages (as well as unwanted phone messages) with the TCPA. See Cranor v. 5
Star Nutrition, L.L.C., 988 F.3d 686, 690–91 (5th Cir. 2021); see also, e.g., Camp-
bell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153, 156 (2016) (“A text message to a cellular
phone, it is undisputed, qualifies as a ‘call’ within the compass of §
227(b)(1)(A)(iii).”).
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degree of harm, see Salcedo, 936 F.3d at 1171, GoDaddy contends
that the class members who received only one text message did not
suffer an injury that has a close relationship to the injury associated
with intrusion upon seclusion.
We disagree.
To be sure, the relationship between the harms we compare
is too attenuated when a plaintiff “completely fails to allege an ele-
ment essential to the harm set out as a common-law comparator.”
Hunstein, 48 F.4th at 1249. But because the concreteness inquiry
centers on whether the harms share “a close relationship,” we do
not require carbon copies; the new harm need only be “similar to”
the old harm. Id. at 1242 (citations omitted); see also TransUnion,
141 S. Ct. at 2209 (“In looking to whether a plaintiff’s asserted harm
has a ‘close relationship’ to a harm traditionally recognized as
providing a basis for lawsuit in American courts, we do not require
an exact duplicate.”).
To find the sweet spot between similar yet not identical,
now-Justice Barrett has said that we should ask whether the harms
share “a ‘close relationship’ in kind, not degree.” Gadelhak v. AT&T
Servs., Inc., 950 F.3d 458, 462 (7th Cir. 2020) (Barrett, J.) (quoting
Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341), cited with approval in TransUnion, 141 S. Ct.
at 2204; see also Hunstein,48 F.4th at 1267
(Newsom, J., dissenting)
(finding it “hard to imagine a circumstance in which a plaintiff’s
harm is similar in both ‘kind’ and ‘degree’ to a common-law tort
and yet is not precisely the same”).
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14 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
That approach has become popular among our sister Cir-
cuits. Just as the Seventh Circuit focuses on kind but not degree,
the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits look to the
“types of harms protected at common law, not the precise point at
which those harms become actionable.” Krakauer v. Dish Network,
LLC, 925 F.3d 643, 654 (4th Cir. 2019); accord Perez v. McCreary,
Veselka, Bra & Allen, P.C., 45 F.4th 816, 822 (5th Cir. 2022); Ward v.
NPAS, Inc., 63 F.4th 576, 580–81 (6th Cir. 2023); Robins v. Spokeo, Inc.,
867 F.3d 1108, 1115(9th Cir. 2017); Lupia v. Medicredit, Inc.,8 F.4th 1184
, 1192 (10th Cir. 2021). The Second and Third Circuits simi-
larly focus on the “character” of the new and old harms when de-
termining whether the relationship is sufficiently close. See Melito
v. Experian Mktg. Sols., Inc., 923 F.3d 85, 93 (2d Cir. 2019); Thorne v.
Pep Boys Manny Moe & Jack, Inc., 980 F.3d 879, 890 (3d Cir. 2020)
(citation omitted).
Following this approach, seven of our sister Circuits have de-
clined to consider the degree of offensiveness required to state a
claim for intrusion upon seclusion at common law. Instead, they
have held that receiving either one or two unwanted texts or phone
calls resembles the kind of harm associated with intrusion upon se-
clusion. See Gadelhak, 950 F.3d at 463 & n.2 (one unwanted text
message); Melito, 923 F.3d at 93 (same); Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness
Grp., LLC, 847 F.3d 1037, 1042–43 (9th Cir. 2017) (two unwanted
text messages); Susinno v. Work Out World Inc., 862 F.3d 346, 351–52
(3d Cir. 2017) (one unwanted phone call); Ward, 63 F.4th at 581
(same); Lupia, 8 F.4th at 1192 (same); Krakauer, 925 F.3d at 652–653
(two unwanted phone calls in one year). In fact, even we have held
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 15
that receiving “more than one unwanted telemarketing call” causes
a harm that bears “a close relationship to the kind of harm” that
intrusion upon seclusion inflicts. Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC, 942 F.3d
1259, 1270 (11th Cir. 2019).
We think that asking whether the harms are similar in kind
but not degree makes sense. Indeed, “Congress may ‘elevate to the
status of legally cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that
were previously inadequate in law.’” Hunstein, 48 F.4th at 1243
(quoting Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 341). And Congress’s power to elevate
harms to the status of legally cognizable injuries “implies that the
level of harm required at common law ‘does not stake out the lim-
its of [its] power to identify harms deserving a remedy.’” Perez, 45
F.4th at 822(alteration in original) (quoting Gadelhak,950 F.3d at 463
); see also, e.g., Ward,63 F.4th at 581
; Hunstein,48 F.4th at 1256
(Pryor, C.J., concurring) (“Congress need not condition providing
a remedy for reputational harm on the degree of offensiveness the
common law required.”).
Asking whether the harms are similar in kind also accords
with our recent en banc decision in Hunstein. There, the plaintiff’s
alleged injury occurred when a creditor mailed personal infor-
mation about his debt to a mail vendor. Id. at 1240. That injury, he
argued, shared a close relationship to the harm suffered from the
tort of public disclosure. Id. But an essential element of that tort
is publicity, which entails the public disclosure of private infor-
mation “‘by communicating it to the public at large,’” id. at 1246
(quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 652D cmt. a). We
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16 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
held that the debt-collector’s disclosure of information about the
plaintiff’s debt to the mail vendor “lack[ed] the fundamental ele-
ment of publicity.” Id. at 1245. In reaching this conclusion, we rea-
soned that the element of publicity either exists or it does not; there
is no in-between. See id. at 1249 (explaining that “we cannot ana-
lyze the degree” of publicity because “the difference between pub-
lic and private is qualitative, not quantitative.”). So the element of
publicity was “completely missing.” Id. at 1245. And we said that
the plaintiff’s alleged harm was not just “smaller in degree” than
the common-law comparator—it was “entirely absent.” Id. at 1249.
Here, by contrast, none of the elements for the common-
law comparator tort are completely missing. Intrusion upon seclu-
sion consists of an (i) intentional intrusion (ii) into another’s soli-
tude or seclusion, (iii) which would be highly offensive to a reason-
able person. Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 652B; see also,
e.g., Jackman v. Cebrink-Swartz, 334 So. 3d 653, 656 (Fla. Dist. Ct.
App. 2021). Unwanted phone calls, as we’ve noted, are among the
privacy intrusions that give rise to liability for intrusion upon seclu-
sion. See Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 652B cmt. d;
Keeton et al., supra, at 855. And as with “the unwanted ringing of
a phone from a phone call,” the “undesired buzzing of a cell phone
from a text message . . . is an intrusion into peace and quiet in a
realm that is private and personal.” Gadelhak, 950 F.3d at 462 n.1.
To be sure, a single unwanted text message may not “be
highly offensive to the ordinary reasonable man.” Restatement
(Second) of Torts, supra, § 652B cmt. d. Yet an unwanted text
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21-10199 Opinion of the Court 17
message is nonetheless offensive to some degree to a reasonable
person. Even GoDaddy conceded at oral argument that receiving
one unwanted text message each day for thirty days would be
enough to satisfy the offensiveness element. Oral Argument at
27:45–28:05; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 652B
illus. 5.
And that concession is the whole ballgame. After all, the ar-
gument that thirty unwanted text messages in thirty days are
enough but one is not is an argument of degree, not kind. If thirty
are enough, then are twenty-nine? Are twenty-eight? How about
two? Drawing the line necessarily requires us to make a choice of
degree.
But the Constitution empowers Congress to decide what de-
gree of harm is enough so long as that harm is similar in kind to a
traditional harm. And that’s exactly what Congress did in the
TCPA when it provided a cause of action to redress the harm that
unwanted telemarketing texts and phone calls cause. See 47 U.S.C.
§ 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). As our colleagues in the Third Circuit have rec-
ognized, “Congress was not inventing a new theory of injury when
it enacted the TCPA.” Susinno, 862 F.3d at 352. Rather, “Congress
identified a modern relative of a harm with long common law
roots.” Gadelhak, 950 F.3d at 462.
In sum, then, we hold that the harm associated with an un-
wanted text message shares a close relationship with the harm un-
derlying the tort of intrusion upon seclusion. Both harms repre-
sent “an intrusion into peace and quiet in a realm that is private and
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18 Opinion of the Court 21-10199
personal.” Id. at 462 n.1. For that reason, the harms are similar in
kind, and the receipt of an unwanted text message causes a con-
crete injury. While an unwanted text message is insufficiently of-
fensive to satisfy the common law’s elements, Congress has used its
lawmaking powers to recognize a lower quantum of injury neces-
sary to bring a claim under the TCPA. As a result, the plaintiffs’
harm “is smaller in degree rather than entirely absent.” Hunstein,
48 F.4th at 1249.
IV.
Because we hold that the receipt of an unwanted text mes-
sage causes a concrete injury, we REMAND this appeal to the panel
to consider the CAFA issues raised in Pinto’s appeal.
USCA11 Case: 21-10199 Document: 131-1 Date Filed: 07/24/2023 Page: 19 of 20
1 JORDAN and NEWSOM, JJ., Concurring 21-10199
JORDAN and NEWSOM, Circuit Judges, Concurring:
We’ve been critical of this Court’s standing jurisprudence –
and the Supreme Court’s too, for that matter. See, e.g., Hunstein v.
Preferred Collection & Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 48 F.4th 1236, 1256 (11th
Cir. 2022) (en banc) (Newsom, J., joined by Jordan, Rosenbaum,
and Jill Pryor, JJ., dissenting); Laufer v. Arpan, LLC, 29 F.4th 1268,
1275(11th Cir. 2022) (Jordan, J., concurring);id. at 1283
(Newsom,
J., concurring); Sierra v. City of Hallandale Beach, 996 F.3d 1110, 1115
(11th Cir. 2021) (Newsom, J., concurring); Muransky v. Godiva Choc-
olatier, Inc., 979 F.3d 917, 957 (11th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (Jordan, J.,
dissenting). But we’ll take what we can get, and we’re pleased to
concur in Judge Rosenbaum’s excellent opinion for the en banc
Court.
USCA11 Case: 21-10199 Document: 131-1 Date Filed: 07/24/2023 Page: 20 of 20
1 BRANCH, J., Concurring 21-10199
BRANCH, Circuit Judge, Concurring:
As the Supreme Court advised in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez,
for purposes of the comparator tort analysis we conduct when as-
sessing Article III standing, the “close historical or common-law an-
alogue for [a plaintiff’s] asserted injury” need not be “an exact du-
plicate in American history and tradition.” 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2204
(2021). We faithfully heeded this guidance in our en banc decision
in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., 48
F.4th 1236, 1242 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). Given these recent de-
velopments in the Article III standing analysis, I fully concur in the
majority opinion.
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