WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider fines imposed on Verizon Communications and AT&T in two cases that could have a wide-ranging impact on the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to impose fines without a jury trial.
The cases involve massive penalties totaling nearly $200 million that the FCC imposed on Verizon ($47 million), AT&T ($57 million), T-Mobile ($80 million) and other wireless carriers for failing to protect their customers’ location data.
Over the past 15 years, the Supreme Court has been steadily chipping away at the authority of regulatory agencies, most notably in its 2024 ruling rejecting the doctrine of “Chevron deference,” under which courts were to defer to a regulatory agency’s expertise in interpreting federal laws where Congress’ intent was unclear, and in a second 2024 ruling in Securities & Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. In the SEC case, the Court ruled 6-3 that the securities regulator must bring fraud cases seeking civil penalties to federal court instead of relying on its internal tribunals.
Based on the SEC case, both Verizon and AT&T appealed the fines, arguing the FCC was denying the defendants their right to a jury trial by issuing them.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York denied that argument in the Verizon case and upheld the fine but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned the fines against AT&T.
Following that, Verizon appealed the 2nd Circuit ruling to SCOTUS and the FCC appealed the AT&T case. The High Court’s decision to hear the cases together will resolve the conflict between the Circuit Court judgments.
“And the decision below has serious practical consequences, since it deprives the Commission of one of its most important regulatory remedies and severely impairs the agency’s ability to enforce federal communications law,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the government’s petition, according to The Hill.
