The U.S. motion to dismiss Ligado's complaint (see 2401260003) employs "a haze of regulatory complexity" to hide the fact that the government has appropriated the company's FCC-granted property rights to use the L band for terrestrial 5G services, Ligado said. "That is a classic taking that requires just compensation," Ligado told the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Monday in a docket 23-1797 memorandum of law in opposition to the U.S. motion to dismiss. It urged the court to act quickly on the motion to dismiss, saying the government's "orchestrated campaign of obstruction and delay [has] driven the company to the brink of bankruptcy."
Six radio broadcasters seek leave to intervene in support of the four petitions for review consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that challenge the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act (see 2403050075), said their unopposed joint motion Monday. The consolidated petitions pending in the 8th Circuit are from Zimmer Radio (docket 24-1380), Beasley Media Group (docket 24-1480), NAB (docket 24-1493) and Nexstar Media Group (docket 24-1516). The radio broadcasters seeking to intervene in support of those petitions are Connoisseur Media, Mid-West Management, Midwest Communications, Sun Valley Radio, Eagle Communications and Legend Communications of Wyoming. The radio broadcasters, owners and licensees collectively of nearly 200 stations across the U.S., would see their interests “adversely affected” by the implementation of the FCC’s order, said their motion to intervene. It would harm them “by arbitrarily restricting their ability to compete in their markets against larger, less regulated digital content providers and advertising platforms,” they said. The platforms, including those owned by some of the largest U.S. companies, have been “siphoning away” listeners and advertising revenue from traditional radio, it said. The ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates associations sought leave Friday to intervene in support of the four petitions, arguing that the FCC’s order “refused to loosen” the commission’s “decades-old regulation of local television ownership to reflect today’s increasingly competitive media landscape (see 2403220041). NCTA on Monday came to the defense of the order, arguing that it rightfully retained the commission's local television ownership rule, which generally limits the number of full-power television stations an entity may own within the same local market (see 2403250064).
Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
DOJ and the FCC praised a Montana judge Friday for imposing a $9.9 million forfeiture penalty against defendant Scott Rhodes for initiating nearly 5,000 illegally spoofed calls across the U.S., in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Truth in Caller ID Act. “Virtually every Montanan has been the subject of unwanted and harassing robocalls, and the person responsible for such calls usually escapes accountability," said U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich for Montana said in a joint statement with FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. "But not this time. In placing thousands of harassing and malicious spoofing calls to consumers across the country, Rhodes showed a blatant disregard to caller ID and telephone consumer protection laws designed to prevent this sort of conduct.” When persistent and malicious robocallers break the law, “it takes strong partnerships like this one to bring them to justice,” said Rosenworcel. “I thank the Justice Department team, in conjunction with FCC lawyers, for vigorously pursuing this penalty.” There’s “no genuine dispute” that the forfeiture penalty of $9.9 million imposed by the FCC against Rhodes, a resident of Idaho and Montana, in its January 2021 order “is reasonable and consistent with the relevant statutory and regulatory guidelines,” said U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen for Montana in Missoula in his March 19 order. The judge denied Rhodes’ motions for reconsideration of the summary judgment order in the government’s favor and to have Christensen disqualified for bias against the defendant.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.net's Feb. 26 emergency motion to expedite consideration of their Feb. 14 E-rate program petition for review, said its order Monday (docket 24-1027). The petitioners haven’t demonstrated that delay “will cause irreparable injury and that the decision under review is subject to substantial challenge, or that the public interest otherwise warrants expedition,” said the order. Their petition for review challenges the authority of the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) to stop processing the reimbursement of discounts for IT and broadband services that MetComm and Essential provided to schools under Section 254 of the Communications Act (see 2402200044). Their motion for expedited consideration argued that unless a briefing schedule is set that would allow for a D.C. Circuit decision on the appeal before the end of the court’s May sitting period, numerous elementary and secondary schools will be deprived of affordable IT infrastructure and broadband service for the new school year this fall (see 2403140002). But the FCC’s opposition said the petitioners have provided no compelling reasons for the D.C. Circuit to expedite review. “Under the circumstances, far from needing to expedite this case,” the D.C. Circuit “lacks jurisdiction to decide it,” because there is no final FCC action for the court to review, said the commission’s opposition.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.
NCTA is seeking to intervene in support of the FCC and against four petitions for review consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act, said NCTA's unopposed motion Monday.
The ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox affiliates associations seek leave to intervene in support of the four petitions for review consolidated in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that challenge the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act (see 2403050075), said their unopposed joint motion Friday.
Kelly Pinn filed suit to enforce the consumer-privacy provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleging that IJ Wireless makes telemarketing calls to numbers listed on the national do not call registry as a representative of the FCC’s “affordable connectivity program,” said her class action Wednesday (docket 1:24-cv-02315) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. The Texas resident further alleges that IJ Wireless violated the TCPA by phoning consumers without their written consent and by contacting people who had previously asked to no longer receive the calls, it said. Pinn’s personal residential phone number has been listed for years on the national DNC registry, yet she received at least four automated calls from various spoofed caller IDs between Dec. 15 and Feb. 5, said her complaint. The plaintiff and members of her proposed classes have been harmed by the acts of IJ Wireless “because their privacy has been violated and they were annoyed and harassed,” it said.
Hamilton Relay, a telecommunications relay service (TRS) provider, seeks to intervene in support of the Ohio Telecom Association’s petition for review challenging the FCC’s Dec. 21 order modifying and expanding the commission’s data breach notification rules on telecom carriers, VoIP providers and TRS providers (see 2402210026), said its unopposed motion Wednesday (docket 24-3133) in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton provides TRS to individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind or have difficulty speaking, said its motion. The company provides intrastate and interstate text telephone, speech-to-speech and captioned telephone services in numerous states through individual state TRS contracts, nationwide relay service through its internet protocol captioned telephone service, which is regulated by the FCC, it said. Hamilton is entitled to intervene because it was a “party in interest” in the proceeding leading to the adoption of the order and the order’s changes to the FCC’s data breach notification rules adversely affect its interests, said the motion. Hamilton submitted comments in February 2023 in the FCC’s NPRM in the run-up to the order, it said. The order expands reporting obligations to the FCC and law enforcement agencies and imposes certain other duties on TRS providers pertaining to unauthorized access to or disclosure of customer proprietary network information and personally identifiable information, it said. In its February 2023 comments, Hamilton urged the FCC to consider how TRS providers are different from common carriers in the services they provide and the information they collect from their customers. The commission should ensure that any reporting obligations imposed on TRS providers “allow for the necessary flexibility to report relevant and actionable information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and to customers,” it said then. It also urged the commission “to consider how its proposed rules will align, or potentially conflict, with existing state and federal privacy regimes,” it said.