Law360, New York (May 1, 2015, 7:18 AM EDT) -- The Federal Communications Commission, the agency which Congress gave authority to implement regulations and enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, expressly exempts common carriers who transmit prohibited fax messages absent "a high degree of involvement or actual notice of an illegal use and failure to take steps to prevent such transmissions." In the Matter of Rules & Regulations Implementing the Tel. Consumer Prot. Act of 1991, 7 F.C.C. Rcd. 8752, ¶ 54 (1992); In the Matter of Enforcement of Prohibitions Against the Use of Common Carriers for the Transmission of Obscene Materials, 2 F.C.C. Rcd. 2819, ¶ 9 (1987). Courts have analogized the common carrier exemption in the fax context to the phone call and text message context, opining that common carriers act as passive middlemen for their creators of the messages, but have never applied the theory to support summary judgment in a call or text message case. See, e.g., Clark v. Avatar Technologies Phl Inc. (S.D. Tex. Jan. 28, 2014) (granting motion to dismiss on the grounds that the TCPA does not impose liability on telecommunications carrier for calls made by another)....