In a positive ruling for TCPA defendants, the Northern District of Georgia declined to treat a maintenance request system as an ATDS where human intervention (here in the form of resident voice messages requesting maintenance) was necessary to trigger the system to route the voice mail requests to maintenance technicians. See July 11, 2019 Order, Broughton v. DJ Acquisitions, LLC, Civil Action No. 1:19-CV-00833-LMM (N.D. Ga.) That said, the court declined to dismiss plaintiff’s TCPA claim against his former employer based on allegations that the resident calls were “prerecorded voice[s]” falling with the scope of the statute.
Plaintiff had been hired as a maintenance technician at an apartment complex in November 2017, but was terminated during his 90-day probationary period. The apartment complex had an automated maintenance notification system named “Call Max” that allowed residents of the property to leave recorded messages requesting apartment maintenance.