Carriers gave up right to jury trial, court rules AT&T and Verizon made similar arguments about their right to a jury trial and cited the Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. That ruling held that "when the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial." In the ruling against T-Mobile, the DC Circuit panel held that the carriers gave up any potential right to a jury trial when they "chose to pay their fines and to seek direct review in this court... The Carriers may not now complain that they were denied a right they voluntarily surrendered." The carriers could have obtained a jury trial if they simply failed to pay the fines and waited to be served with a complaint, the ruling said. "Even if the Seventh Amendment applies, it was not violated because the Carriers had the opportunity to put their case before a jury," judges wrote. The carriers argued that they didn't really have a right to a jury trial because the FCC orders "are final agency actions with real-world effects; indeed, the FCC acknowledges that it may use its untested factual findings in license-renewal decisions and penalty calculations." The carriers argued that in some jurisdictions where the government could bring a collection action, "the Companies would not have the right to raise factual and legal challenges to the Orders. The possibility of a government-initiated collection action therefore does not satisfy the Seventh Amendment and Article III." The appeals court panel responded that "this court has not adopted the rule that troubles" the carriers. If "the government brought an enforcement action in a jurisdiction with the unfavorable rule, the Carriers could have raised as-applied challenges in those proceedings. But we cannot 'invalidate legislation on the basis of... hypothetical... situations not before' us," judges wrote.
First seen: 2025-08-18 19:42
Last seen: 2025-08-20 21:25