In Miller v. NRA Group, LLC, 2014 WL 5343529 (W.D.Mich. 2014), Judge Carmody granted summary judgment to a debt collector on a Plaintiff’s TCPA claim due to the consent the Plaintiff had provided to the Creditor.

Pursuant to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), it is unlawful “to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice … to any telephone number assigned to a … cellular telephone service….” 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1) (iii). Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated this provision by calling her cell phone on ten different occasions without prior consent. In support of its motion for summary judgment, Defendant has submitted an affidavit executed by Ashley Chille, corporate counsel for NRA Group, LLC. (Dkt.# 19). Chille asserts that she oversees “NRA’s day-to-day collection activities” to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Chille asserts that on or about September 26, 2013, Aspen Dental “referred a past due account to NRA arising from services that were provided by Aspen Dental to Plaintiff in 2012.” Chille further asserts that “NRA’s records reflect that Plaintiff provided Aspen Dental with a telephone number of (616) 366–8526 on Aspen Dental’s Patient Information Form.” Finally, Chille asserts that “Plaintiff never informed NRA not to contact her using the phone number previously provided to Aspen Dental.” As the statutory language quoted above makes clear, the TCPA is not violated if the telephone call in question was made with the “prior express consent” of the person called. While the TCPA does not define “prior express consent,” courts, relying on orders issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) interpreting the TCPA, have concluded that individuals who knowingly provide their phone numbers have given consent to be called at that number, absent instructions to the contrary. See, e.g., Hudson v. Sharp Healthcare, 2014 WL 2892290 at *3 (S.D.Cal., June 25, 2014); Ranwick v. Texas Gila, LLC, –––F.Supp.2d ––––, 2014 WL 3891663 at *2–4 (D.Minn., Aug.7, 2014). That Plaintiff in this case was contacted by NRA Group rather than Aspen Dental, the entity to whom Plaintiff provided her cell phone number, is of no consequence. See, e.g., Penn v. NRA Group, LLC, 2014 WL 2986787 at (D.Md., July 1, 2014) (“providing a cell phone number to the creditor is the same as providing it to a third-party collector working on behalf of the creditor”); Ranwick, 2014 WL 3891663 at *2–4 (same). Plaintiff has failed to respond to the present motion or otherwise submit evidence in opposition thereto. The evidence submitted by Defendant demonstrates that Plaintiff provided Aspen Dental, and by extension NRA Group, LLC, prior express consent to telephone her. Accordingly, Defendant’s motion for summary judgment is granted.