Florida Telephone Solicitation Act Text Claims After the 2023 Changes

Since May 25, 2023, a consumer can’t sue for damages under Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act over marketing texts without first replying “STOP” and then receiving more texts after a 15-day window. The same amendment narrowed the law’s autodialer rule and made consent easier to prove. The statute still offers $500 or actual damages, whichever is greater, and it still shifts fees to the winner. But a company facing one of these claims usually has more defenses now than the demand letter admits.

What did the 2023 amendments change?

Four things, each useful to a defendant.

The amendment was CS/CS/HB 761, signed May 25, 2023 and published as chapter 2023-150, Laws of Florida. It took effect on becoming law.

A narrower automated-system rule. The statute now provides that a person “may not make or knowingly allow to be made an unsolicited telephonic sales call if such call involves an automated system for the selection and dialing of telephone numbers or the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed to a number called without the prior express written consent of the called party,” under § 501.059(8)(a). The 2023 session law changed selection “or” dialing to selection “and” dialing. On its face, the new wording requires a system that automates both picking the numbers and dialing them, and I’d argue that automating only one of the two is no longer enough.

Unsolicited calls only. The same paragraph now reaches only “unsolicited” sales calls. That word brings in the definition in § 501.059(1)(k), which excludes, among others, calls made “In response to an express request of the person called” and calls “To a person with whom the telephone solicitor has a prior or existing business relationship.”

Easier signatures. A signature now includes “checking a box indicating consent or responding affirmatively to receiving text messages, to an advertising campaign, or to an e-mail solicitation,” under § 501.059(1)(h). The same law made the same change from “or” to “and” in the consent definition in § 501.059(1)(g).

The STOP notice. A new paragraph (c) in subsection (10) requires a STOP reply and a 15-day window before a suit over text solicitations.

Florida’s text has no random-or-sequential-number-generator element, so the federal autodialer defense covered in our post on autodialer claims after Duguid doesn’t carry over directly. I expect the Florida fight to center on whether the platform selected the numbers on its own.

Which businesses face Florida text claims?

Any business that sends marketing texts to consumers with Florida numbers or in Florida, wherever the business sits.

The statute says “Doing business in this state” means businesses that conduct sales calls “from a location in Florida or from other states or nations to consumers located in Florida,” and a “Telephonic sales call” includes a “text message,” under § 501.059(1)(e) and (j). Area codes do the rest: “There is a rebuttable presumption that a telephonic sales call made to any area code in this state is made to a Florida resident or to a person in this state at the time of the call,” under § 501.059(8)(d).

That presumption cuts both ways. A customer with a 305 number who moved to Ohio is presumed to be in Florida, but I’d gather billing addresses and location data to rebut it. It doesn’t help a plaintiff with an out-of-state number, either. Someone with a 212 number has no presumption to lean on and has to prove Florida presence another way.

The narrower point I think defendants underuse is the consumer element. A sales call under the statute is one made “to a consumer” to solicit a sale of “consumer goods or services,” and those are goods or services “normally used for personal, family, or household purposes,” under § 501.059(1)(c) and (j). Texts offering business loans, equipment leases, or software to small businesses have a real argument that they fall outside the automated-system and no-call provisions. That argument doesn’t reach the stop-request rule in § 501.059(5), which covers a text message to “a consumer, business, or donor or potential donor” who asked not to be contacted.

How does the 15-day STOP window work?

The recipient must reply STOP first, and a suit is allowed only if texts keep coming 15 days after that notice.

The statute provides: “Within 15 days after receipt of such notice, the telephone solicitor shall cease sending text message solicitations to the called party and may not send text messages to the called party thereafter, except that the telephone solicitor may send the called party a text message to confirm receipt of the notice.” A suit is allowed “only if the called party does not consent to receive text messages from the telephone solicitor and the telephone solicitor continues to send text messages to the called party 15 days after the called party provided notice to the telephone solicitor to cease such text messages,” under § 501.059(10)(c).

The paragraph’s first sentence applies to “any action for damages under this section for text message solicitations,” so on its text it covers automated-text claims and Florida do-not-call claims alike. Its last sentence goes further and says the called party “may bring an action under this section only if” the STOP conditions are met, which gives a defendant a strong textual argument that an injunction claim over texts needs the notice too. Germain, discussed below, dismissed the plaintiff’s whole FTSA count.

Don’t treat the 15 days as a compliance schedule, though. Federal law is tighter. For autodialed or prerecorded messages and texts to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, the FCC’s current rule says “All requests to revoke prior express consent or prior express written consent made in any reasonable manner must be honored within a reasonable time not to exceed ten business days from receipt of such request,” under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(a)(10). The company-specific do-not-call rule in § 64.1200(d)(3) sets the same limit for telemarketers. The federal rule also allows one confirmation text with no marketing in it, and presumes it’s fine “If the confirmation text is sent within five minutes of receipt,” under § 64.1200(a)(12). I’d suppress a number within minutes and treat Florida’s window as a backstop.

Do the amendments apply to cases filed before May 2023?

Federal trial courts have applied them to uncertified class actions, but at least two Florida trial courts have refused.

Section 2 of the session law states: “The amendments made by this act apply to any suit filed on or after the effective date of this act and to any putative class action not certified on or before the effective date of this act,” according to chapter 2023-150. An individual suit filed before May 25, 2023 falls outside that language.

In Gadke v. New York Tribeca Group, No. 1:22-cv-07810 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 16, 2024), the plaintiff received texts in early 2022 and sued in December 2022. The court wrote: “Plaintiff has not moved for class certification, so the amendment applies to his action.” It dismissed his damages claims because the complaint didn’t allege a STOP reply.

In Germain v. Mario’s Air Conditioning and Heating, Inc., No. 8:23-cv-671 (M.D. Fla. June 17, 2024), the texts arrived in September 2022 and the suit was filed in state court in February 2023, then removed. Relying in part on an earlier Middle District decision, Holton v. eXp Realty, the court held: “Because Plaintiff failed to certify this class action on or before May 25, 2023, the amended FTSA applies to Plaintiff’s individual claim and the class action.” It dismissed the FTSA count without prejudice and without leave to amend, and it struck the FTSA class allegations. Neither federal order took up a due-process challenge to Section 2.

State court has been less friendly. According to an August 2024 article in the American Bar Association Litigation Section’s consumer litigation newsletter, “Two Florida trial courts have reached the opposite result,” finding that retroactive application against the named plaintiff would violate due process. Both courts relied on Menendez v. Progressive Express Insurance Co., 35 So. 3d 873 (Fla. 2010). There, the Florida Supreme Court refused to apply a no-fault presuit notice rule to earlier policies, and said that “even where the Legislature has expressly stated that a statute will have retroactive application, this Court will reject such an application if the statute impairs a vested right, creates a new obligation, or imposes a new penalty.”

For a defendant still litigating a pre-amendment case, I think the safer motion targets the class allegations. A named plaintiff can claim a vested right in an accrued claim, but not a vested right to represent an uncertified class.

What about quiet hours and the three-call limit?

Those rules live in a different statute, and their text speaks of phone calls.

Florida’s Telemarketing Act provides that “A commercial telephone seller or salesperson may not make any of the following types of phone calls,” including “A commercial telephone solicitation phone call before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. local time in the called person’s time zone” and “More than three commercial telephone solicitation phone calls from any number to a person over a 24-hour period on the same subject matter or issue, regardless of the phone number used to make the call,” under § 501.616(6). Section 501.604 says its exemptions don’t reach section 501.616(6). But the Act defines “commercial telephone seller” and “salesperson” to exclude persons exempted by section 501.604, under § 501.603(2) and (11), so an exempt business has an argument that subsection (6) never reaches it. A commercial telephone solicitation also starts with an “unsolicited telephone call,” under § 501.603(1).

Two things favor a business sued over evening texts. Section 501.616(6) never mentions text messages, though plaintiffs will argue a text is a call, so treat this as an argument, not a safe harbor. And the remedy is different: a person “who is injured by a violation” may sue “for recovery of actual damages and/or punitive damages, including costs, court costs, and attorney’s fees,” under § 501.625. There’s no $500 floor, so the plaintiff has to prove an injury, though fee exposure makes even a small claim worth taking seriously. Still, schedule Florida texts between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time.

FTSA exposure and defenses at a glance

The base remedy is to “Recover actual damages or $500, whichever is greater,” and the court may increase the award to “not more than three times the amount available” if it finds the violation willful or knowing, under § 501.059(10). A called party can also sue to “Enjoin such violation.” The statute doesn’t say the $500 is counted per text. Plaintiffs will point to the words “a violation” to count each message, and I’d contest any complaint that assumes per-text recovery.

Fees run both ways. “In any civil litigation resulting from a transaction involving a violation of this section, the prevailing party, after judgment in the trial court and exhaustion of all appeals, if any, shall receive his or her reasonable attorney fees and costs from the nonprevailing party,” under § 501.059(11)(a). A winning defendant should expect a fight over whether that opening clause requires a violation, but the clause belongs in early settlement talks.

Which pleading attacks work against an FTSA complaint?

The missing STOP allegation is the strongest, and Article III standing is the weakest.

In Gadke and Germain, the complaints’ own screenshots showed no STOP reply. Then test the complaint for facts on how the platform selected numbers, why the texts were unsolicited, and why the product is a consumer good. Our post on motions to dismiss in TCPA cases covers the federal pleading standard those attacks rely on.

I’d skip the standing motion in federal court in Florida. The Eleventh Circuit held en banc in Drazen v. Pinto, 74 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2023), that “A plaintiff who receives an unwanted, illegal text message suffers a concrete injury.” The Germain court cited Drazen in rejecting a standing argument.

Consent records do the rest. Florida’s written consent needs the called party’s signature, the number, authorization for automated or prerecorded sales calls, and a clear and conspicuous disclosure that includes that signing isn’t a condition of purchase, under § 501.059(1)(g). A web form log or keyword opt-in can supply that proof if it captures the disclosure the customer saw.

When a Florida text claim arrives

1. Put a litigation hold on the platform’s message logs for the number, with timestamps and the consent record behind it.
2. Pull every inbound reply from the number, find the first STOP, and list each message sent after it by date and time.
3. Pull the National Do Not Call and Florida list scrub records, with the list versions used.
4. Collect the platform contract, campaign settings showing how numbers were selected and sent, and vendor or lead-source agreements.
5. Talk to a lawyer before answering the demand, texting the claimant, or offering anything to settle.

The firm’s page for TCPA defense attorneys in California covers how claims involving marketing texts sent to Florida numbers are evaluated, from the records to the first response.

Questions businesses ask about Florida text claims

Does the 15-day STOP rule apply to phone calls?

Not on its terms. Section 501.059(10)(c) covers damages actions “for text message solicitations,” and its STOP conditions all concern text messages. A defendant could point to the last sentence’s reference to “an action under this section,” but I wouldn’t count on that for call claims, so a business that calls Florida consumers should assume it gets no cure window. The federal ten-business-day rule covers calls and texts alike, and I’d design around it.

Can a business text a Florida customer who already bought from it?

Often, under Florida’s automated-system and no-call rules. The 2023 amendment limited the automated-system rule to unsolicited calls, and a call to someone with whom the solicitor has a prior or existing business relationship isn’t unsolicited. Federal rules and the stop-request rule still apply.

Is a single text enough for a Florida claim?

Not for damages over texts. A text damages claim requires a STOP reply and a text sent 15 days after that notice, so one marketing text with no follow-up shouldn’t support a damages action. Standing is a separate question. The Eleventh Circuit treats a single unwanted, illegal text as enough injury for federal standing, so the STOP requirement, not Article III, is the defense to press.

Sued over texts to Florida numbers?

If your company has been sued or received a demand over texts to Florida consumers, the STOP log and the consent records are where the defense starts. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims under Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.

Sources

The statute is Fla. Stat. § 501.059 (2024), as amended by ch. 2023-150, Laws of Fla. (CS/CS/HB 761). The Telemarketing Act provisions are § 501.603, § 501.604, § 501.616, and § 501.625. The FCC rule is 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200, as published in the eCFR through May 22, 2025.

The court decisions are Gadke v. New York Tribeca Group, No. 1:22-cv-07810 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 16, 2024); Germain v. Mario’s Air Conditioning and Heating, Inc., No. 8:23-cv-671 (M.D. Fla. June 17, 2024); Drazen v. Pinto, 74 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2023) (en banc); and Menendez v. Progressive Express Insurance Co., 35 So. 3d 873 (Fla. 2010). The state-court split is described in the ABA Litigation Section article (Aug. 1, 2024).

This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of May 22, 2025. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Courts and the FCC change the rules in this area often, and the outcome of any claim depends on its facts. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.