A fax advertisement that reaches someone through an online fax service isn’t a fax sent to a “telephone facsimile machine,” a federal judge in Oakland held in a May 22, 2026 order. It’s the case that produced the Supreme Court’s 2025 McLaughlin decision, and the court ruled without deferring to the FCC. Faxes printed on a traditional machine are still covered. For companies facing junk-fax class actions, the recipient’s equipment has become a central fact, and often a reason a class can’t be certified.
What the Northern District of California decided
The case is True Health Chiropractic, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., No. 4:13-cv-02219-HSG, a class action alleging that McKesson sent unsolicited fax advertisements. After the Supreme Court sent the case back in 2025, the plaintiffs asked Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. to certify a class again. He denied the motion. Our post on defending junk fax claims covers the permission and business-relationship defenses.
The order starts with the statute’s structure. The TCPA makes it unlawful “to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send, to a telephone facsimile machine, an unsolicited advertisement,” under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(C). A sender can use any of three kinds of devices. The recipient’s device has to be a fax machine. The court concluded that the statute’s wording “thus indicates that a computer is distinct from a telephone facsimile machine,” according to the order, and that a cloud-based service that only prints if it’s connected to other equipment doesn’t qualify.
The court acknowledged that the law isn’t uniform. It noted that “Not every court has reached the same conclusion,” and it declined to follow the Sixth Circuit’s 2021 decision in Lyngaas v. Curaden AG, which read the definition more broadly. It instead “joins the several other courts that have rejected Plaintiffs’ arguments and interpretation,” per the order, including the Fourth Circuit.
The class ruling followed from that. The parties agreed there was no class-wide way to sort recipients who used online services from those with stand-alone machines, so the court held that “individualized issues predominate, and class action treatment is not the superior method” of resolving the case. On July 1, 2026, the court entered final judgment. Its final-disposition order also recites the earlier bench-trial finding that the defendants sent faxes to the two named plaintiffs but “did not violate the TCPA willfully or knowingly in either case.”
The ruling isn’t final in the larger sense. McLaughlin Chiropractic appealed, and its opening brief in the Ninth Circuit, No. 26-4045, was filed October 14, 2026. A district court order binds no other court, and the Ninth Circuit hasn’t decided the question.
How the FCC’s ruling fits after McLaughlin
In 2019, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau ruled in the Amerifactors declaratory ruling that an online fax service that receives faxes the way email arrives “falls outside the scope of the statutory prohibition.” The Northern District originally treated that ruling as binding and entered summary judgment against the online-fax portion of the class.
The Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp. changed the method on this question, not the result. District courts in enforcement cases no longer have to follow an FCC interpretation. They decide what the statute means, giving the agency’s view appropriate respect. On remand, the court did that work itself, read the definition in § 227(a)(3), which requires the capacity “to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper,” and reached the same result the Bureau had. It also found Amerifactors more persuasive than the FCC’s earlier fax rulings from 2003 and 2015. Our post on McLaughlin v. McKesson covers the Supreme Court’s decision.
The Fourth Circuit had already read the statute the same way, based on its plain language. In Career Counseling, Inc. v. AmeriFactors Financial Group, it said a fax can be sent from several kinds of devices, but “that fax can be received in only one way,” on a telephone facsimile machine.
What changes for businesses that fax, and what doesn’t
Faxes to traditional machines are still covered. Exposure is $500 per fax under § 227(b)(3), and a court may increase it up to $1,500 per fax if it finds the violation willful or knowing. Nothing in the ruling helps a sender whose ads printed on a stand-alone machine.
The established-relationship exception still has conditions. The statute allows fax ads to recipients with an established business relationship whose number the sender obtained in an approved way, but only if the fax carries the opt-out notice the statute requires. The notice is the first thing I’d check on any fax template, because a missing or defective one can turn an otherwise lawful fax program into exposure.
The fight moves to class certification. In True Health, the plaintiffs couldn’t show which recipients used which technology, and that defeated the class. I think this is where junk-fax defense now lives. A sender’s records about its fax list, the delivery reports from its broadcast vendor, and any data on which numbers were hosted by online services can show how varied the recipients were. After this ruling those records carry real weight, and they’re easy to lose when a vendor relationship ends. Our post on consent defenses at class certification covers the Ninth Circuit’s 2018 ruling in this same case.
California’s appellate answer is still pending. The Sixth Circuit’s broader reading remains good law in that circuit, and the Ninth Circuit could go either way. A company defending a fax case in California should make the online-fax argument and preserve it, while preparing to defend the faxes that reached traditional machines on their own terms. I wouldn’t plan a fax campaign on the assumption that online-fax recipients are off limits until the Ninth Circuit rules.
Steps for a company facing a junk-fax claim
- Preserve the fax broadcast logs, delivery reports, and transmission records for every number on the campaign list, and put them under a litigation hold with the broadcast vendor as well.
- Pull the opt-out requests received from fax recipients, with dates, and confirm when each number was removed.
- Pull the source records for each fax number, including any consent, established-relationship, or directory source, since the fax exception depends on how the number was obtained.
- Collect the fax templates actually sent, the opt-out notice language on each, and the vendor contracts that governed the campaign.
- Talk to a lawyer before responding to a demand, contacting the recipient, or discussing settlement terms with plaintiff’s counsel.
The firm’s page for TCPA defense attorneys in California covers how claims involving unsolicited fax advertisements are evaluated, from the records to the first response.
Defending fax advertising claims
If your company has been sued over fax advertisements, the recipients’ equipment and the opt-out notice on each fax are likely to shape the defense. Rosenberger + Kawabata represents businesses defending TCPA lawsuits and class actions through its business litigation practice, including claims involving unsolicited fax advertisements. Contact Rosenberger + Kawabata online for a free and confidential consultation, or call (310) 894-6921.
Sources
The district court orders are True Health Chiropractic, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., No. 4:13-cv-02219-HSG (N.D. Cal. May 22, 2026), ECF No. 589 (order denying second renewed motion for class certification), and the order confirming final disposition (July 1, 2026), ECF No. 597. The appeal is No. 26-4045 (9th Cir.), with the appellant’s opening brief filed Oct. 14, 2026. The other decisions are McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025), and Career Counseling, Inc. v. AmeriFactors Financial Group, LLC, 91 F.4th 202 (4th Cir. 2024). The FCC ruling is Amerifactors Financial Group, LLC, DA 19-1247 (Dec. 9, 2019). The statute is 47 U.S.C. § 227.
This post is general information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and related laws as of October 16, 2026. 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.