The Supreme Court held 2026 that FCC forfeiture orders against AT&T and Verizon require no jury trial, reinforcing agency enforcement power across regulated industries.
The Supreme Court ruled June 4 that the Federal Communications Commission may impose forfeiture orders on telecommunications carriers without a jury, rejecting a Seventh Amendment challenge brought by AT&T and Verizon [1]. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, reasoning that FCC forfeiture orders constitute only the agency's own internal determination and carry no legally binding force until the Department of Justice files a separate enforcement action in federal court [1]. At that later stage, the carriers would retain their right to a jury, the Court held [1].
The case, FCC v. AT&T, reached the Court after the carriers argued that civil penalties of the magnitude the FCC routinely imposes trigger the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial in suits at common law [1][2]. The challenge implicated the FCC's core enforcement mechanism, under which the agency issues a forfeiture order administratively and then refers collection to DOJ if the carrier refuses to pay [2]. The case was decided at 608 U.S. 25-406 [2].
The ruling fortifies the FCC's enforcement posture by confirming that carriers cannot interpose a jury-trial demand to delay or complicate the agency's penalty proceedings. More broadly, the decision signals that the Seventh Amendment's reach in administrative penalty contexts is bounded by whether the agency action itself constitutes a final legal judgment, a distinction the majority drew sharply [1]. The holding applies beyond telecommunications, establishing precedent for every regulated industry in which a federal agency assesses civil monetary penalties before any court involvement [1].
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, contending that the majority's two-step framework, agency order followed by DOJ enforcement, did not accurately reflect how courts historically handled such enforcement actions prior to the administrative state's expansion [1]. Thomas argued the historical record supported treating the forfeiture proceeding itself as the operative moment triggering jury-trial rights [1].
The decision takes immediate effect. Carriers facing pending FCC forfeiture orders may no longer invoke the Seventh Amendment to demand a jury at the administrative stage [1]. DOJ retains authority to pursue unpaid forfeitures in district court, where the jury-trial right would attach, but the government now proceeds with confirmed authority to complete the agency phase without that procedural hurdle [1][2]. Regulated industries and their counsel are expected to reassess litigation strategies that relied on Seventh Amendment challenges to delay agency penalty collections [1].