Supreme Court Hears AT&T, Verizon Privacy Fine Cases

Published

22 April 2026

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The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in cases brought by two major telecommunications companies challenging million-dollar fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission over alleged failures to protect consumers' personal location data.

The hearing focused on two cases involving the FCC's 2024 forfeiture orders fining AT&T and Verizon USD57 million and USD48 million, respectively, which were consolidated into a single case before the court.

AT&T attorney Jeffrey Wall argued the FCC's enforcement actions violated the Seventh Amendment and left AT&T and Verizon without recourse to demand a jury trial. Wall claimed the FCC subsequently said the penalties were nonbinding and would only be assessed upon the completion of a jury trial at the companies' request. He also maintained the FCC's position had shifted such that, if the companies opted not to pay the fines, the government would seek enforcement only if the matter was referred to the Department of Justice and ultimately upheld in court.

"If the government were right about the statute, it would just walk them into a constitutional problem," Wall said. "They want these forfeiture orders because they know that legitimate parties pay 100% of the time. If your main regulator says that you are violating the law, you can't let that hang over your head indefinitely."

During his oral argument, Department of Justice Assistant to the Solicitor General Vivek Suri said the suggestion that the FCC's fines were compulsory without the opportunity to argue them before a judge was incorrect. He said if AT&T and Verizon wanted to resolve the matter in a more condensed timeframe, they could have petitioned for a declaratory judgment action, which would have been subject to a judicial proceeding.

"What (Wall) is saying is sometimes you have to sit around and wait for a lawsuit to be filed," Suri said. "It is not a Seventh Amendment violation that the government might take time to file a lawsuit. The Seventh Amendment simply requires that when a lawsuit is filed, at that point, there is an entitlement to a jury trial ... and that is consistent with the (FCC's enforcement) scheme here."

The case history

The case began in 2020 when the FCC proposed fining AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon **** and alleged the sale of their customer location data to third parties compromised highly sensitive data. The FCC claimed the companies' actions violated portions of the Telecommunications Act, which requires carriers take reasonable steps to safeguard the location data of their customers.

The matter was left unaddressed by the FCC until 2024, when commissioners voted 3-2 along party lines to issue fines totaling approximately USD200 million to the three companies — USD57 million for AT&T, USD48 million for Verizon and USD92 million for T-Mobile. In T-Mobile's case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the company's appeal and dismissed its petition.

Each of the telecom companies initially paid the assessed fines, but later sued in federal court to vacate them by claiming the FCC violated their Seventh Amendment rights. The resulting appeals brought by AT&T and Verizon led to split decisions among the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth and Second Circuits, after which the Supreme Court agreed to hear AT&T and Verizon's cases.

Justices appear to side with FCC

Despite the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the justices line of questioning to the companies' attorney suggested there is likely some ideological consensus to rule in the government's favor when the final decision is expected in June or early July.

Questioning Wall, Chief Justice John Roberts asked if the whole issue at hand was "a public relations problem." He questioned if the companies still had a case if the FCC were to modify the language on its forfeiture orders to clearly state the affected party can seek judicial redress if it believes an order is unfounded.

"You're saying they're (strongly worded) letters, the language says (you) did something bad, and so everybody has to pay so they don't get bad PR," Roberts said to Wall. "I'm wondering, in terms of the substantive legal issue, though, you are not obligated to pay until you get a jury (trial)."

Justice Elana Kagan said the FCC's orders represent the "agency's determination of liability" based on the FCC's enforcement scheme under the law. However, she said that determination is not final until either the noticed party accepts the penalty or pursues the matter in court.

"If all (the government) had to do was go get (an order) enforced, and the court that enforced the order didn't have the right to look behind the order and decide for itself whether it was true, but that's not this case," Kagan said. "This is the (FCC's) determination of liability, but then a court can start all over again and say that it was wrong and does so with a jury trial if (AT&T) wanted to."

Conservative justices sympathize with alleged lack of clarity in FCC's order

While the justices appeared to side with the government based on their questioning, at certain points Justice Brett Kavanaugh came across as sympathetic to the telecom companies' argument that the FCC's final forfeiture orders were unclear on the noticed parties' right to seek judicial review upon receiving the order.

"There is a world of difference between the government telling you, 'We think you owe something,'" Wall said. "And then in a hundred-page order telling you, 'you absolutely (owe something) and you're an egregious lawbreaker, and we admonish you never to do it again.'"

Kavanaugh expressed some agreement with AT&T and Verizon's argument that they were misled into paying the FCC's fines before seeking judicial review and that the FCC was retreating from its initial argument that the fines were originally compulsory over the course of the two-year proceeding.

"If the agency had done less process, then given you the (jury trial), that would have been better?" Kavanaugh asked Wall. "What you're complaining about, and it's understandable, is you think you were misled into paying the money without getting the jury trial by what the government had in the orders, and I think that's a serious problem."

FCC wants Supreme Court to affirm its authority, remand waiver of rights question

Responding in his oral argument, Suri disagreed that the final order was misleading , but rather it contained direct verbiage that said AT&T and Verizon "had a right to a jury trial before (they) could be required to pay." He also said a potential remedy could be the Supreme Court asking the FCC to change the wording of their forfeiture orders to state in the clearest terms possible that a noticed party is under no obligation to immediately pay any penalties before taking the matter to court.

"We do think it's important for the government to turn square corners when it's dealing with the citizenry," Suri said. "The government cannot mislead someone into waiving his jury trial rights. We suggest the court rule for us on the question presented … and then leave for remand disputes whether this particular waiver of the jury trial right was knowing and voluntary, or whether AT&T was misled."

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Contributors:

Alex LaCasse

Staff Writer

IAPP

Tags:

Enforcement Litigation and case law U.S. federal regulation Telecommunications Advertising and marketing Privacy

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