The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the FCC's in-house forfeiture process does not violate the Seventh Amendment, limiting the reach of its 2024 Jarkesy decision.
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 4 that the Federal Communications Commission may impose forfeiture orders against regulated carriers through its internal administrative process without triggering the Seventh Amendment's right to a jury trial [1]. The decision, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, arose from fines of approximately $57 million levied against AT&T and approximately $47 million against Verizon for selling customer location data without customer consent [2]. Justice Clarence Thomas was the sole dissenter [1].
The case, FCC v. AT&T, Inc., reached the Supreme Court after the carriers challenged the FCC's in-house enforcement mechanism as constitutionally defective under the Seventh Amendment [2]. The central procedural question was whether the Commission's forfeiture order process, which operates entirely within the agency before any federal court is involved, amounts to a civil penalty that requires a jury to assess [3]. The Court held it does not.
The majority's reasoning turned on a structural feature of FCC enforcement: forfeiture orders are not self-executing [2]. When a carrier refuses to pay, the government must file a separate civil action in federal district court to collect the unpaid fine, and it is at that collection stage, not the administrative stage, where the Seventh Amendment's protections attach [1]. Because the jury-trial right remains available in that downstream proceeding, the majority concluded the agency's in-house process does not strip carriers of a constitutional guarantee [2].
The ruling carries direct implications for the broader administrative enforcement landscape. The Court's 2024 decision in SEC v. Jarkesy held that defendants facing civil penalties in securities-fraud proceedings are entitled to a jury trial when the agency seeks to impose those penalties through in-house adjudication. The FCC decision limits Jarkesy's reach to agency penalties that are directly enforceable without a separate collection action, preserving the FCC's administrative model and potentially shielding analogous enforcement structures at other agencies [3]. Telecom counsel and regulated industries had closely watched the case as a potential vehicle to extend Jarkesy across the administrative state.
AT&T and Verizon retain the ability to contest liability and the fine amounts before a federal jury if the FCC elects to pursue collection in district court [2]. The decision does not foreclose that challenge; it only confirms that the administrative phase itself need not include a jury [1].