SCOTUS Rules Against AT&T, Verizon Over Fines For Selling Location Data

Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter, ARSTechnica reported

The carriers contended that this process deprived them of a constitutional safeguard guaranteed in civil cases involving substantial financial penalties, ARSTechnica noted further.

According to the Court, the carriers could have refused to pay the fines and forced the government to pursue collection efforts, a process that ultimately could have resulted in a jury trial.

“The FCC’s forfeiture proceedings fit comfortably within” the Supreme Court’s Seventh Amendment precedents, Roberts wrote.

“And the orders did not reflect the ultimate determination of any fact because, before the carriers could have been made to pay, the Government was required to prove its case to a jury,” said the chief justice.

The outcome was foreshadowed during oral arguments, where several justices appeared unconvinced by AT&T’s and Verizon’s constitutional objections and suggested that FCC penalty orders do not become legally binding until a court is asked to enforce them.

He noted that federal officials acknowledged FCC penalty orders are not self-executing nonbinding sans a jury trial.

“It seems like you’ve won on the law going forward, one way or the other,” Kavanaugh told the attorney representing the carriers, per ARSTechnica.

“The Supreme Court got this one right,” Bergmayer said in a press release.

“AT&T and Verizon sold access to their customers’ location data, then failed to stop bounty hunters and even a rogue sheriff from using it to track people who had no idea they were being followed,” he added.