{"id":142,"date":"2026-06-04T18:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T18:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=142"},"modified":"2026-06-04T18:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T18:45:11","slug":"court-rules-against-cell-service-providers-over-right-to-jury-trial-in-fcc-proceedings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Court rules against cell service providers over right to jury trial in FCC proceedings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge by AT&T and Verizon to the constitutionality of the process that the Federal Communications Commission uses to impose sanctions for violations of federal telecommunications laws. By a vote of 8-1, with only Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting, the justices in FCC v. AT&T<\/em> that the process \u2013 under which the agency can issue an order finding a company liable and instructing it to pay a penalty \u2013 does not violate the right to a jury trial guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment.<\/p>\n

Read more The Supreme Court\u2019s long history of shaping race<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge came after the FCC issued orders assessing penalties of $57 million against AT&T and $47 million against Verizon for mishandling confidential customer location data. At that point, the companies had two options. They could ask a federal appeals court to review the FCC\u2019s order, using a deferential standard. Or they could wait to see whether the FCC asked the Department of Justice to bring a lawsuit against them to enforce the penalties. Both companies chose the first avenue and argued (among other things) in the courts of appeals that the FCC\u2019s enforcement procedures violated the Seventh Amendment.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with AT&T and threw out the FCC\u2019s order, while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled against Verizon. The Supreme Court chose early this year to weigh in, and on Thursday it issued a ruling in favor of the FCC.<\/p>\n

In a 14-page , Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the Seventh Amendment \u201c\u2018preserves\u2019 the right to trial by jury in \u2018Suits at common law\u2019\u201d and \u201capplies in all proceedings, whatever their \u2018peculiar form,\u2019 in which \u2018legal rights\u2019 are to be \u2018settled.\u2019\u201d However, Roberts continued, the Seventh Amendment does not indicate when the trial by jury must occur. Rather, he wrote, the Constitution \u201crequires only that, before legal rights and obligations are conclusively \u2018ascertained and determined,\u2019 a party has the chance to insist that a jury make the \u2018ultimate determination of issues of fact.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Following these principles, Roberts said, the Supreme Court has upheld determinations that may be reviewed later in a jury trial, with the jury taking a fresh look at the facts of the case. The proceedings that the companies are challenging, Roberts wrote, \u201cfit comfortably within these precedents.\u201d The FCC\u2019s orders did not require the companies to pay the penalties and therefore did not resolve the companies\u2019 legal obligations, he stressed. Moreover, he added, before the government could require the companies to pay those penalties, it would have to bring a lawsuit in a federal court and \u201cprove its case to a jury.\u201d \u201cAt day\u2019s end,\u201d Roberts concluded, \u201ca forfeiture order \u2026 is simply the Commission\u2019s own determination. Its only legal effect is to enable the Department of Justice to file a suit to recover for the carriers\u2019 suspected violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Announcement of opinions for Thursday, June 4<\/a><\/p>\n

Roberts also rejected the companies\u2019 argument that they should be entitled to a jury before the orders are entered because those orders \u201ccause reputational and practical harms.\u201d He pointed to the text of the Seventh Amendment, stating that it \u201capplies only to suits \u2018where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars\u2019\u201d \u2013 and not to cases in which there is no financial harm at issue. But in any event, Roberts added, although any litigant\u2019s reputation could conceivably be harmed \u201cin the preliminary stage of a legal proceeding,\u201d such as the filing of a complaint against them \u201ctrigger[ing] negative press,\u201d \u201cthis has never been thought to pose a Seventh Amendment problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts similarly rebuffed the companies\u2019 contention that the FCC\u2019s enforcement procedures violated the unconstitutional conditions doctrine, the idea that \u201cthe Government may not effectively deny constitutional rights by making it too costly to exercise them.\u201d The companies had suggested that under the current scheme, they faced two unpalatable choices: pay the penalty and go to the court of appeals, which will review the FCC\u2019s determination under a deferential standard; or refuse to pay the penalty and wait to see whether the DOJ will file an enforcement action, where they could have a jury consider their cases. In the court\u2019s view, the unconstitutional conditions doctrine was \u201ca poor fit for this case,\u201d because the companies\u2019 Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial does not attach until the Department of Justice brings an enforcement action, which it \u201cis not required to pursue.\u201d As a result, Roberts reasoned, the companies\u2019 right to a trial by jury may never \u201cattach in the first place.\u201d \u201cThe carriers\u2019 argument is thus something like a criminal defendant arguing that his right to trial by jury is infringed when the prosecutor decides to dismiss the indictment before trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his seven-page dissent, Thomas agreed with the majority that if the FCC\u2019s orders are not binding, and if the government would have to make its case from scratch if the DOJ brings a lawsuit to enforce an order, the rule that the court articulates in its opinion on Thursday \u201cshould govern future proceedings.\u201d But he argued that it was a different story when the FCC issued the orders at the center of this case to AT&T and Verizon in 2024. \u201cIf AT&T and Verizon ignored the orders and the Government brought an enforcement action,\u201d he suggested, those lawsuits would not have resembled the ones that the FCC now promises. Instead, he said, courts declined to provide such trials, and \u201c[m]any did not allow challenges to the Commission\u2019s legal determinations, even on appeal, no matter how erroneous they were.\u201d In fact, he observed, \u201cwhen AT&T and Verizon paid their penalties, no carrier had ever received a jury trial\u201d in this kind of enforcement action. Thomas also questioned whether the companies would have actually known that they were not required to pay over $100 million in penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday,\u201d Thomas concluded, \u201cthe Court punishes AT&T and Verizon for complying with a government order that they in good faith believed was obligatory, diligently preserving their objection to that order, and then litigating that objection so effectively as to cause the Government to change its position years later. I respectfully dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Opinions expected<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge by AT&T and Verizon to the constitutionality of the process that the Federal Communications Commission uses to impose sanctions for violations of federal telecommunications laws. By a vote of 8-1, with only Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting, the justices in FCC v. 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