The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Cisco’s mandamus petition to require the Eastern District of Texas in Texarkana to transfer Dexon’s antitrust case against Cisco and CDW to the Northern District of California (see 2304250056), said its order Wednesday (docket 23-40257).
Judicial deference to agency legal interpretations “sits uncomfortably” with the Constitution’s separation of powers, said America First Legal Foundation in a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Wednesday (docket 22-451) in support of the petitioners in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The petitioners are commercial fishing companies urging SCOTUS to “jettison” the Chevron doctrine (see 2307180033).
Individual states that “abandoned” their own versions of Chevron deference haven’t suffered “negative consequences” as a result, said the Goldwater Institute (GI) in a U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Tuesday (docket 22-451) in support of the petitioners in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
In 82 pages of “detailed factual findings,” U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty for Western Louisiana in Monroe found that federal officials “have covertly injected themselves into the content-moderation decisions of all major social-media platforms,” said the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri and the individual plaintiffs in their brief Monday (docket 23-30445) at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in opposition to the government’s emergency motion to stay Doughty’s July 4 preliminary injunction. The New Civil Liberties Alliance also signed the brief.
The complaint in which Legacy Equity Advisors alleges AT&T deprived the private equity firm of bidding for Cricket Wireless, DirecTV and other noncore assets because of its African American ownership (see 2305040065) “is as offensive as it is baseless,” said AT&T’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00979) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas in support of its motion to dismiss.
Five newly announced FTC enforcement actions against illegal robocalls and telemarketing fraud marked Tuesday’s debut of Operation Stop Scam Calls, a nationwide “enforcement sweep” involving more than 100 federal and state agencies, including DOJ, the FCC and the attorneys general of all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a Friday opinion (docket 22-2392), affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in Verizon’s favor, ruling that the denial by White Deer Township in central Pennsylvania of Verizon’s applications for seven variances to build a 195-foot monopole cell tower had the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services, in violation of the Telecommunications Act. Verizon leased 2,600 square feet of a 1.9-acre property to build the tower to fill a four-mile gap in wireless coverage along a desolate stretch of Interstate 80.
The “far-reaching question” that the U.S. Supreme Court will address in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo -- whether Chevron deference “should be overruled or at least clarified” -- implicates the separation of powers, said an amicus brief Thursday (docket 22-451) by the Atlantic Legal Foundation in support of the petitioners in the case. The petitioners are a group of vessel owners challenging the authority of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to require them to pay the salaries of the federal observers they must carry onboard. The petitioners are asking SCOTUS to reverse a U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit decision in NMFS's favor that critics of the ruling are calling clear agency overreach. Their opening brief is due Monday. It's a case expected to have broad implications for the future deference afforded federal agencies under Chevron to properly interpret and enforce the federal statutes they have authority over. In addressing the viability or scope of Chevron deference, SCOTUS should use the case “as an opportunity to correct, or at least admonish,” the “brazen disrespect” that NMFS holds for the Constitution’s appropriations clause, said the foundation. Over many decades, both the executive branch and Congress, “often in concert,” have violated “the letter and/or purpose” of the appropriations clause “in too many ways to catalog here,” it said. Only SCOTUS can begin to restore the clause’s “crucial constitutional check against abuse” of executive branch power. it said. SCOTUS has limited its review to the question of whether Chevron should be overruled, or at least clarified, so courts don’t equate “statutory silence with statutory ambiguity” for purposes of deferring to an agency’s assertion of controversial powers under a statute that it administers, said the foundation. If Chevron deference excludes anything, it should be the NMFS’ “unconstitutional power grab here,” it said. An agency interpretation can’t be “reasonable, or permissible, or consistent with congressional intent,” if it conflicts with the constitution, it said.
T-Mobile filed suit Thursday against Oyster Bay, New York, for the town's “unreasonable and unsupportable denial” of T-Mobile’s application for a rear yard variance necessary to install and operate a wireless telecom facility to remedy a “significant gap in wireless services in the area.” The town also imposed “unreasonable, excessive, and prohibitive escrow charges and application fees,” alleged T-Mobile’s complaint (docket 2:23-cv-05339) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip.
The submitted FCC and AT&T briefs in the 4th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court review of the commission’s Nov. 18 pole attachment order (see 2307070013) “ably demonstrate” that Duke Energy’s challenges to the order “lack merit,” said USTelecom’s 4th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court amicus brief Thursday in support of the FCC and in opposition to Duke. The commission’s order found the pole attachment rates Duke was charging AT&T were unjust and unreasonable.