AT&T, State Farm and CVS Hit With Five TCPA Text Message Class Actions

Five putative class actions filed in federal court in 2026 accuse three of the best-known consumer brands in the country of the same basic thing: customers told the company to stop texting, and the texts kept coming.

The defendants are AT&T Services, Inc. (two cases), State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, and CVS Pharmacy, Inc. (two cases). All five lawsuits rely on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and all five are at the very beginning. No class has been certified, no settlement has been announced, and there is no claim form.

Everything below describes allegations in complaints. None of it has been proven, and none of the companies has been found liable.

Quick Facts

Case	Court	Case No.	Plaintiff’s Counsel
Griffin v. AT&T Services, Inc.	S.D. Fla.	2:26-cv-14385	Joseph Varona and Vinit R. Venkatesh, PLG Damage Attorneys
Botto v. AT&T Services, Inc.	E.D. Cal.	2:26-cv-09527	Joseph Varona and Vinit R. Venkatesh, PLG Damage Attorneys
Ramos v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company	C.D. Cal.	2:26-cv-09602	Gerald D. Lane Jr., The Law Offices of Jibrael S. Hindi
O’Brien v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc.	E.D. Cal.	2:26-cv-03352	Joseph Varona and Vinit R. Venkatesh, PLG Damage Attorneys
Bieganowski v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc.	C.D. Cal.	5:26-cv-05771	Liran Aliav, Consumer Lit Inc.

Item	Details
Law Cited	Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, and FCC do-not-call rules at 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200
Damages Sought	$500 per violation, up to $1,500 per knowing or willful violation
Other Relief	Injunction ordering compliance with the do-not-call rules
Jury Trial	Demanded in all five cases
Class Certified?	No
Settlement or Claim Form	None; there is nothing for consumers to file right now

Details of the Griffin case come from the complaint itself. Details of the other four cases come from published case summaries and the identified case information. Verify against the original complaints before quoting.

1. Griffin v. AT&T Services: Texts Allegedly Continued After a Stop Reply

Rebecca Griffin, a Vero Beach, Florida, resident, filed her putative class action on September 28, 2026, in the Southern District of Florida. She says AT&T sent her a promotional text for an iPhone upgrade that told her to reply STOP to end marketing messages. On March 19, 2026, she replied with a stop instruction. According to the complaint, AT&T ignored the request and sent at least two more solicitations afterward. Screenshots attached as Exhibit A show an automated AT&T reply saying it did not understand her response and offering “HELP.”

Griffin does not claim to know exactly how AT&T runs its compliance program. She argues that the failure to honor her request is itself evidence that AT&T has no written do-not-call policy, no standalone do-not-call list, and no training for the people who run its telemarketing. The complaint says those details are within AT&T’s knowledge, which is the usual reason plaintiffs plead this way before discovery.

She asks the court to certify a nationwide class of people who, in the four years before filing, received two or more AT&T texts within any 12-month period on a residential cell number after replying “stop” or something similar. The complaint estimates at least 50 class members and says AT&T’s own message logs could identify them. She seeks statutory damages, a declaration that AT&T violated the TCPA, and an injunction requiring a written policy, staff training and a do-not-call list.

A detail that matters. Open Class Actions, which reviewed the exhibit, reported that the texts after Griffin’s opt-out came from a different AT&T short code and read like billing notices about an account balance and online bill, not sales pitches. The complaint characterizes all of the messages as solicitations. Whether a billing notice counts as “telemarketing” under the FCC rule is a question AT&T can be expected to raise.

2. Botto v. AT&T Services: Continued Texts and After-Hours Messages

Bridget Botto, a California resident, filed in the Eastern District of California on August 26, 2026, about a month before Griffin. She says she asked AT&T to stop texting her around March 11, 2026, received the same automated “did not understand” reply, and then got at least two more solicitations.

Botto goes a step further. She also alleges AT&T sent marketing texts before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time, which FCC telemarketing rules restrict. Her proposed class covers people who got more than one AT&T marketing text in a 12-month period on a cell number used as a residential line, either after asking AT&T to stop or with at least one of the texts arriving in the restricted early-morning or late-night window.

The timing claim is separate from the opt-out claim. A court would need to decide whether the messages were covered solicitations, whether an exception applies, and whether the evidence supports each theory.

3. Ramos v. State Farm: Four Months of Texts After an Alleged Opt-Out

Cesar Josue Ramos, a California resident, sued State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company in the Central District of California, reportedly on August 27, 2026. He says he sent an opt-out request around February 7, 2026, and that State Farm kept sending marketing texts anyway, including on June 4 and August 3, 2026.

That is roughly four months of messages after the alleged request, which matters because FCC rules give a company only a reasonable time to honor a request. The complaint alleges violations of the TCPA and the FCC’s internal do-not-call requirements and seeks to represent others who received similar texts after asking State Farm to stop.

4. O’Brien v. CVS Pharmacy: ExtraCare Promotion After a Confirmed STOP

Maureen O’Brien filed in the Eastern District of California, reportedly on September 23, 2026. She alleges she was not enrolled in CVS’s ExtraCare loyalty program, had not agreed to the promotional messages, and had her cell number on the National Do Not Call Registry since 2009. She says CVS texted her to finish joining ExtraCare, she replied STOP, and CVS confirmed she would receive no more ExtraCare texts. About 70 days later, on July 26, 2026, she says CVS sent another similar promotion.

A confirmation followed by a new promotion is a pattern plaintiffs like, because it suggests the request was received and logged but not honored across the company’s systems or vendors. CVS has not been found liable.

5. Bieganowski v. CVS Pharmacy: Was a Plain-Language Opt-Out Rejected?

Karoly Bieganowski alleges CVS sent her at least 19 marketing texts, and that CVS rejected two plain-language requests to stop because she did not use the keyword “STOP.” This raises a separate and arguably more consequential question: whether a company can insist on one magic word. She also adds a claim under California’s Unfair Competition Law, which the other four complaints do not.

FCC rules adopted in 2024 say consumers may revoke consent to automated calls and texts through any reasonable means, and callers must honor revocations within a reasonable time not to exceed 10 business days, subject to the rules’ scope and effective dates. That does not mean every phrase creates a valid opt-out in every context. The question is whether the consumer’s request was a reasonable way to revoke and whether the company complied.

The Rules Behind All Five Lawsuits

The TCPA, enacted in 1991, restricts certain calls and texts. Two parts matter here.

• Section 227(b) restricts automated and prerecorded calls and texts without the required consent.
• Section 227(c) directs the FCC to protect residential subscribers from unwanted telemarketing. Its private right of action, § 227(c)(5), lets a person who receives more than one violating call within 12 months from the same company sue.

The FCC’s telemarketing rules, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200, require a company that markets by phone or text to:

• keep a written do-not-call policy and make it available on request
• train the staff involved in telemarketing on how the do-not-call list works
• record a do-not-call request and honor it within a reasonable time (historically no more than 30 days; check the current text of § 64.1200(a)(10) and (d)(3) given the 2024 changes)
• avoid telemarketing before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the recipient’s location
• respect the National Do Not Call Registry, which the FCC has applied to wireless numbers and texts

A company may argue an established business relationship or consent exception, but a clear stop request generally ends an established-business-relationship exception for that company’s marketing.

How much could be awarded?

Under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5) (and § 227(b)(3) for automated-call claims), a court may award $500 per violation, and may increase it up to three times that, or $1,500, for knowing or willful violations. These are statutory ceilings the plaintiffs are asking for, not amounts anyone is owed. A person who received 10 messages should not assume a $5,000 or $15,000 entitlement: a court would decide which messages qualify, whether the claim is legally available, and whether enhanced damages are justified. If a settlement is ever reached, per-person amounts often differ.

The Legal Fight Ahead: Are Texts “Calls”?

The defendants have an argument that did not exist in this form a few years ago.

On July 14, 2026, the Seventh Circuit held in Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, No. 25-2398, that text messages are not “telephone calls” under § 227(c)(5), so that provision’s private right of action does not cover unwanted texts. The plaintiffs there had replied STOP and still received more messages. The court interpreted the statute directly, applying the Supreme Court’s decisions in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp. (2025), which freed courts from deferring to FCC interpretations, and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024). It noted that the FCC has treated texts as calls in other contexts, but said that did not answer whether Congress created a private damages claim for texts.

This decision binds only federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. It does not bind the Southern District of Florida (Eleventh Circuit) or the California districts (Ninth Circuit) where these five cases sit. Other courts have gone the other way: a federal court in Illinois refused to dismiss a do-not-call text case in May 2026, reasoning that the FCC’s rules reach texts to wireless phones, and reports indicate at least one Ninth Circuit district court has held that § 227(c)(5) covers texts. The Ninth Circuit has also held texts are calls under § 227(b), a different provision. Commentators expect the question may reach the Supreme Court.

Expect the “are texts calls?” argument in motions to dismiss in some or all of these cases. No ruling on it has been reported in any of the five. Companies also remain exposed to state laws, such as California’s Unfair Competition Law, that can reach text marketing separately.

Other defenses to watch

• Not telemarketing. Billing or account notices may fall outside the “telemarketing” definition, which matters for Griffin.
• Consent or established business relationship.
• Arbitration and class waivers. If customers agreed to arbitrate, a defendant may seek to compel individual arbitration (AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011)).
• Standing. In the Eleventh Circuit, a single unwanted text can be enough for standing (Drazen v. Pinto, 74 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2023) (en banc)). Defendants may still challenge standing and class members’ injuries in other courts.
• Class certification. The plaintiffs must satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, including numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy, and for damages classes, predominance and superiority. Individualized consent questions often make TCPA classes hard to certify.

What Happens Next?

1. Responses. Each company will answer or move to dismiss, often within weeks to months of service.
2. Motions to dismiss. Expect arguments about whether texts are calls, whether the messages are telemarketing, and whether the plaintiffs pleaded enough facts.
3. Discovery. If claims survive, the parties exchange text records, opt-out logs, policies and vendor information.
4. Class certification. The court decides whether the claims can be handled together.
5. Settlement or trial. Many TCPA cases settle, often before trial. Nothing here suggests that has happened, and timing cannot be predicted.

If any case settles, the notice would explain who qualifies and how to file.

Can You Join These Cases?

Not right now. No class exists, so there is no claim form. Do not assume you are included because you received a message from one of the companies. Each complaint proposes its own class definition, and a court may narrow or reject it.

If you keep getting texts after asking a company to stop, these steps cost nothing:

• Take screenshots showing the full message, sender number or short code, date, and your reply.
• Keep a simple log of dates if the texts continue.
• Send a clear written opt-out and keep a copy.
• Save any confirmation and any proof of whether you ever gave permission.
• Note whether the messages are promotional, billing-related or service-related.
• You can file a complaint with the FCC or the FTC, and forwarding spam texts to 7726 reports them to your carrier.

If you think you have a claim, a licensed attorney in your state can tell you whether you do.

What Is Not Established

• No court has found AT&T, State Farm or CVS liable.
• No class has been certified in any of the five cases.
• The allegations come from complaints and published summaries and are unproven.
• Whether texts are covered by § 227(c)(5) is unsettled across courts, and no ruling has been reported in these five cases.
• No damages amount has been awarded or approved for any consumer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is suing AT&T over text messages?

Rebecca Griffin, a Florida resident, and Bridget Botto, a California resident, filed separate putative class actions against AT&T Services, Inc. Griffin filed in the Southern District of Florida on September 28, 2026, and Botto filed in the Eastern District of California on August 26, 2026.

Is State Farm being sued for unwanted texts?

Yes. In Ramos v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, Cesar Josue Ramos alleges State Farm kept sending marketing texts after an opt-out request he says he sent around February 7, 2026. The case is in the Central District of California.

What is CVS accused of?

Maureen O’Brien says CVS confirmed her STOP request and then sent another ExtraCare promotion about 70 days later. Karoly Bieganowski says CVS sent at least 19 marketing texts and refused two plain-language opt-out requests because she did not type “STOP.”

How much money could class members get?

Unknown, and possibly nothing. The complaints seek $500 per violation and up to $1,500 for knowing or willful violations, but those are ceilings the plaintiffs are asking for, not amounts anyone is owed.

Can I file a claim?

No. No class has been certified and no settlement has been reached.

Do the do-not-call rules apply to texts?

The FCC’s rules say they do. Courts disagree on whether the TCPA’s private right of action under § 227(c)(5) covers texts. The Seventh Circuit said no on July 14, 2026, a ruling that binds only Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, while other courts have said yes.

Does every unwanted text violate the TCPA?

No. Liability depends on the message, consent, the technology and conduct involved, the statutory provision, and the FCC rules. A consumer’s dislike of a message alone does not establish a violation.

Key Dates

Date	Event
February 7, 2026 (approx.)	Ramos says he sent an opt-out request to State Farm
March 11, 2026 (approx.)	Botto says she sent her opt-out request to AT&T
March 19, 2026	Griffin replies with a stop instruction to AT&T
May 2026	An Illinois federal court allows a do-not-call text case to proceed
July 14, 2026	Seventh Circuit rules texts are outside § 227(c)(5) (Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services)
July 26, 2026	O’Brien says CVS sent a new ExtraCare promotion
August 26, 2026	Botto v. AT&T Services filed
August 27, 2026	Ramos v. State Farm reportedly filed
September 23, 2026	O’Brien v. CVS Pharmacy reportedly filed
September 28, 2026	Griffin v. AT&T Services filed

Related Coverage

• Anytime Fitness Robocall TCPA Lawsuit, What Members Need to Know About Automated Voicemail Messages

Sources and Case Information

1. Class Action Complaint, Griffin v. AT&T Services, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-14385 (S.D. Fla. filed Sept. 28, 2026), via CourtListener: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.724823/gov.uscourts.flsd.724823.1.0.pdf
2. Top Class Actions, “TCPA class action lawsuits target AT&T, others over unsolicited texts,” October 13, 2026 (source for the Botto, Ramos, O’Brien and Bieganowski allegations, counsel and case numbers): https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/tcpa-class-action-lawsuits-target-att-others-over-unsolicited-texts/
3. Open Class Actions, “AT&T Sued for Texting a Customer After She Asked It to Stop,” October 11, 2026: https://openclassactions.com/lawsuits/tcpa/att-text-message-opt-out-tcpa-class-action-lawsuit.php
4. Botto v. AT&T Services Inc., No. 2:26-cv-09527 (E.D. Cal.); Ramos v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, No. 2:26-cv-09602 (C.D. Cal.); O’Brien v. CVS Pharmacy Inc., No. 2:26-cv-03352 (E.D. Cal.); Bieganowski v. CVS Pharmacy Inc., No. 5:26-cv-05771 (C.D. Cal.)
5. Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, No. 25-2398 (7th Cir. July 14, 2026), as summarized by Manatt, Holland & Knight, Cooley, Womble Bond Dickinson and Troutman: https://www.manatt.com/insights/newsletters/tcpa-connect/seventh-circuit-holds-text-messages-are-not-calls-for-tcpa-do-not-call-claims
6. Wisconsin Law Journal, “Telephone Consumer Protection Act-Class Action,” July 20, 2026: https://wislawjournal.com/2026/07/20/telephone-consumer-protection-act-class-action-2/
7. Orrick, “Court allows putative class action to proceed, holds do-not-call protections apply to text messages,” May 1, 2026: https://infobytes.orrick.com/2026-05-01/court-allows-putative-class-action-to-proceed-holds-do-not-call-protections-apply-to-text-messages/
8. Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/227
9. FCC regulations, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200; FCC 24-24, Order on Revocation of Consent: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-24A1.pdf
10. McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp. (U.S. 2025); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (U.S. 2024); AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011); Drazen v. Pinto, 74 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2023); Fed. R. Civ. P. 23

Information is based on court filings and published reports as of October 14, 2026. Lawsuit allegations are unproven, and AT&T, State Farm and CVS have not been found liable. This article is general legal information, not legal advice. AllAboutLawyer.com is not a law firm. If you spot an error, tell us and we will correct it.