The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that FCC forfeiture orders require no jury trial, sharply narrowing the reach of its 2024 Jarkesy decision for the regulatory state.
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 4 that the Federal Communications Commission may issue forfeiture orders against carriers without a jury trial, rejecting a Seventh Amendment challenge brought by AT&T and Verizon following more than $100 million in penalties for customer data protection failures [1]. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, reasoning that FCC forfeiture orders do not conclusively resolve a carrier's legal obligations and that affected parties retain access to a de novo jury trial if the Department of Justice files an enforcement action in federal court [2]. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter [1].
The case, FCC v. AT&T (No. 25-406), consolidated challenges from two circuits that had reached opposite conclusions. The Fifth Circuit had ruled in the carriers' favor, holding that the Seventh Amendment required jury involvement in the agency's penalty proceedings. The Second Circuit had upheld the FCC's authority. The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and affirmed the Second Circuit, resolving the split and settling the question of whether administrative forfeiture proceedings at the FCC must include a jury [2].
The decision's most significant dimension is its treatment of SEC v. Jarkesy, the Court's 2024 ruling that the Securities and Exchange Commission could not use in-house proceedings to impose civil penalties for securities fraud without a jury. Roberts drew a structural distinction: unlike the SEC's contested adjudications in Jarkesy, FCC forfeiture orders function as a preliminary agency determination, not a final adjudicative resolution of rights [2]. That framing limits Jarkesy's reach considerably, signaling that agencies may retain administrative enforcement authority so long as a downstream judicial remedy with a jury remains available to the regulated party [1].
The ruling carries broad implications for the administrative state. Agencies including the FTC, EPA, and CFTC that impose civil money penalties through internal proceedings have faced mounting Seventh Amendment litigation since Jarkesy. A broader reading of that precedent threatened to require jury trials at the front end of agency enforcement across major regulatory regimes [1]. The Court's reasoning here erects a functional test, focused on whether the agency's order is final and legally binding, rather than a categorical rule that would attach jury-trial rights to any civil penalty proceeding [2].
With the circuit split resolved, lower courts and agencies will now apply the majority's finality framework to pending Seventh Amendment challenges in other enforcement contexts. AT&T and Verizon remain exposed to the underlying forfeiture amounts if DOJ elects to pursue enforcement actions in district court, where the carriers will have the jury trial Roberts described as the procedural safeguard justifying the administrative process [2].