Supreme Court upholds FCC’s fines against Verizon, AT&T

The Supreme Court rejected Verizon and AT&T’s constitutional challenge to massive fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in an 8-1 vote on Thursday.

Chief Justice John Roberts ruled the companies are not entitled to a jury trial to contest the fines. Related to the use of customers’ location data, they amount to more than $100 million combined.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees jury trials for certain “suits at common law,” but the FCC stresses its forfeiture orders aren’t binding. It says a company that doesn’t want to pay can force a collection lawsuit, bringing its concerns before a judge and jury.

“And the Commission’s factual findings are not conclusive,” Roberts agreed. “It thus does not offend the Constitution for the Commission to issue forfeiture orders without the involvement of a jury.”

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. He said the companies had no way to ensure that a court would ultimately respect their jury right down the road when they opted to pay.

“AT&T and Verizon did what courts ordinarily encourage: They paid under protest and filed suit to get their payments back,” Thomas wrote.

“Today, the 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,” he continued.

The battle stems from the FCC’s fines against Verizon and AT&T for illegally sharing access to customers’ location data. The investigation was spurred by reports that a Missouri sheriff was ultimately able to get access to some of the data through a third party.

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