Magistrate Judge Andy Austin, in a report and recommendation approved by District Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District of Texas, recently held, as a matter of first impression, that a portion of the Texas Telecommunications Act (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 321.001 et seq.) is preempted by federal law. The court dismissed a lawsuit claiming Austin-based online deal aggregator Offers.com had violated federal and state laws regulating commercial email. The court held that Offers.com had not violated any federal law, and that the federal “CAN-SPAM Act” (15 U.S.C. §§ 7701-7713) preempted the plaintiff’s claims based on Texas’s statute regulating commercial e-mail. Graves Dougherty attorneys Pete Kennedy and Guillermo Alarcon represented Offers.com. The court’s opinion can be found here.