1st Circuit Rules That It Doesn't Have to Transfer IPCS Challenge
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected arguments from providers of incarcerated people's communications services (IPCS) that it's required to transfer a case challenging the FCC’s 2024 IPCS to the 5th Circuit, said an opinion Friday. “We see no basis for concluding that we must transfer the petitions,” the ruling said. “And, at least for now, we have no request to exercise our discretion to transfer the petitions. We also see no reason to do so on our own at this time.” On Tuesday, the FCC approved an IPCS order on rate caps that it has said will render moot provider challenges to the 2024 order (see 2510280045).
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IPCS providers, including Securus, had filed challenges to the 2024 FCC order in the 5th Circuit, but the case was assigned to the 1st Circuit through a lottery process by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) after public interest groups also filed challenges in other jurisdictions. In oral argument in October (see 2510070044), the IPCS providers argued that those public interest filings were premature and that the JPML erred in conducting the lottery.
In Friday’s order, the court rejected the idea that it had jurisdiction over the JPML’s actions. The providers “appear to predicate their contention on the understanding that they may collaterally attack in our Court the JPML's determination that the administrative record pertaining to the Order be filed in this Court. But they point to no provision of law that would support that contention,” said the 1st Circuit ruling. “The mere implicit assumption that we have such authority does not amount to an argument for our having it.”
The 1st Circuit could order the case to be transferred to the 5th Circuit at its discretion, but no parties have asked it to do so, the ruling said. “We see no reason for us to exercise our discretion to transfer them on our own to the Fifth Circuit or to any other court,” it said. “Indeed, in the course of addressing the mandatory transfer arguments, we have necessarily become familiar with these petitions.”