Judges Probe FCC’s $57 Million Fine Against AT&T
The company argued FCC fines were invalid under SEC v. Jarkesy
Jake Neenan

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2025 – AT&T urged a panel of Fifth Circuit judges Tuesday to toss a $57 million fine for allegedly not taking care to protect consumer location data the company sold to third parties. Judges probed both the carrier’s argument that it was entitled to a jury trial before being fined under recent Supreme Court precedent.
The high court found in a June 2024 decision that the Securities and Exchange Commission violated the Seventh Amendment by levying civil fines without providing the option of a jury trial. Pratik Shah, representing AT&T, argued that nullifies the FCC’s forfeiture process as well.
The Justice Department does pursue unpaid fines in court, but Shah argued there was no guarantee the DOJ would do so.
“AT&T has no way to force the hand. AT&T just wants its day in court to get out of this final forfeiture order that imposes all these consequences,” Shah said. “That’s why all the major carriers paid the fine. It’s not like they want to give the FCC $200-plus million off the bat, it was the only viable choice” to get legal review.
The carrier also argued that the FCC didn’t have authority to levy penalties for the location data at issue. Shah said AT&T collected that data as a result of being both a voice and data provider, and argued the Communications Act only protected data collected by virtue of being a common carrier voice provider.
Verizon and T-Mobile were hit with fines of their own – selling location data was a widespread industry practice at the time – and are also challenging them in court on similar grounds. Oral arguments in T-Mobile’s case are slated for late March and haven’t been scheduled in the Verizon case.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr dissented from the fines when they were handed down in April under Democratic Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. He had voted for the proposed fines as a commissioner in 2020, but echoed the carriers’ CPNI arguments in his dissent and said the FTC should have handled enforcement.
In court on Tuesday, FCC attorney Adam Sorenson argued that, in addition to the option of DOJ proceedings, Jarkesy was not applicable because the issue falls into the Seventh Amendment’s “public rights” exemption – matters Congress decides agencies can adjudicate outside of court.
Two judges, Stuart Duncan and Corey Wilson, both appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, appeared receptive to the carrier’s argument around Jarkesy and the Seventh Amendment.
Duncan cited an 1887 report and a 1915 Supreme Court decision related to the ICC, a precursor agency to the FCC and many other federal agencies, that he said found the ICC’s forfeiture regime had to be consistent with the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
“I don’t see how we could say that there’s any tradition of your agency or any precursor agency being able to impose monetary penalties on a common carrier outside the Seventh Amendment,” he said.
Sorenson maintained that overseeing and levying penalties on common carriers had been “specifically assigned” to the FCC and other agencies, along the lines of the public rights exemption, for decades.