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Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.

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Supreme Court of the United States
Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.
Docket number: 25-406[1]
Term: 2025
Court: United States Supreme Court
Important dates
Argument: April 21, 2026
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts • Clarence Thomas • Samuel Alito • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan • Neil Gorsuch • Brett Kavanaugh • Amy Coney Barrett • Ketanji Brown Jackson

Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc. is a case scheduled for argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on April 21, 2026, during the court's October 2025-2026 term. It is consolidated with Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission.

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The issue: The case concerns The Communications Act of 1934. Click here to learn more about the case's background.
  • The questions presented: The question presented in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc. was: "Whether the Communications Act provisions that govern the FCC's assessment and enforcement of monetary forfeitures are consistent with the Seventh Amendment and Article III."[2] The question presented in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission was: "Whether the Communications Act violates the Seventh Amendment and Article III by authorizing the FCC to order the payment of monetary penalties for failing to reasonably safeguard customer data, without guaranteeing the defendant carrier a right to a jury trial."[3]
  • The outcome: The appeal is pending adjudication before the U.S. Supreme Court.


    • Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc. came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. To review the lower court's opinion, click here.

    Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission came on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. To review the lower court's opinion, click here.

    Background

    Case summary

    Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.

    The following are the parties to this case:[4]

    The following summary of the case was published by Oyez, a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia, and the Chicago-Kent College of Law:[5]

    “ Between 2014 and 2019, AT&T operated a location-based services program in which it collected and shared its customers’ mobile location data with third-party service providers such as Life Alert and AAA. To provide this data, AT&T contracted with ‘location aggregators,’ who in turn resold the data to service providers. AT&T required those providers to obtain customer consent for each location request and reviewed their procedures, but it did not directly verify customer consent before transferring data. In 2018, news reports began revealing that some service providers misused or failed to adequately protect customers’ location data. In response, AT&T halted access for those providers, and by March 2019, shuttered the entire location-data program.

    Prompted by these reports, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiated an investigation and in 2020 issued a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL), proposing a $57 million fine for AT&T’s purported violations of Section 222 of the Communications Act of 1934 and corresponding FCC regulations. AT&T challenged the classification of location data as ‘customer proprietary network information’ (CPNI), asserted it had acted reasonably, and raised constitutional objections. After reviewing AT&T’s written response, the FCC rejected its defenses and issued a forfeiture order. Significantly, the FCC imposed the fine without a hearing or trial; AT&T’s only opportunity to respond occurred through written submissions to the agency.

    AT&T paid the fine and petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for review. The Fifth Circuit vacated the forfeiture order, holding that the FCC’s in-house enforcement process violated AT&T’s rights under Article III and the Seventh Amendment.[6]

    		”

    To learn more about this case, see the following:

    Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission

    The following are the parties to this case:[7]

    The following summary of the case was published by Oyez, a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute, Justia, and the Chicago-Kent College of Law:[5]

    “ The Telecommunications Act of 1996 entitles new companies seeking to enter local telephone service markets to lease elements of the incumbent carriers' local exchange networks and directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prescribe methods for state utility commissions to use in setting rates for the sharing of those elements. The FCC provided for the rates to be set based upon the forward-looking economic cost of an element as the sum of the total element long-run incremental cost of the element (TELRIC) and a reasonable allocation of forward-looking common costs incurred in providing a group of elements that cannot be attributed directly to individual elements and specified that the TELRIC should be measured based on the use of the most efficient telecommunications technology currently available and the lowest cost network configuration. FCC regulations also contain combination rules, requiring an incumbent to perform the functions necessary to combine network elements for an entrant, unless the combination is not technically feasible. In five separate cases, a range of parties challenged the FCC regulations. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals held that the use of the TELRIC methodology was foreclosed because the Act plainly required rates based on the actual cost of providing the network element and invalidated certain combination rules.[6] ”

    To learn more about this case, see the following:

    Timeline

    The following timeline details key events in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.:

    • April 21, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument.
    • January 9, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
    • October 2, 2024: Federal Communications Commission, et al. appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    • August 22, 2025: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that AT&T willfully and repeatedly violated Section 222 of the Telecommunications Act and Section 64.2010 of the Federal Communications Commission’s CPNI Rules.

    The following timeline details key events in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission:

    • April 21, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument.
    • January 9, 2026: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
    • November 6, 2025: Verizon Communications Inc. appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    • September 10, 2025: The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the petition for review presented by Verizon Communications Inc.

    Questions presented

    The petitioner presented the following questions to the court:[2][3]

    Questions presented in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.:
    “ Whether the Communications Act provisions that govern the FCC's assessment and enforcement of monetary forfeitures are consistent with the Seventh Amendment and Article III.[6] ”
    Questions presented in Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission:
    “ Whether the Communications Act violates the Seventh Amendment and Article III by authorizing the FCC to order the payment of monetary penalties for failing to reasonably safeguard customer data, without guaranteeing the defendant carrier a right to a jury trial.[6] ”

    Oral argument

    Audio

    Audio of the case will be posted here when it is made available.

    Transcript

    A transcript of the case will be posted here when it is made available.

    Outcome

    The case is pending adjudication before the U.S. Supreme Court.

    October term 2025-2026

    See also: Supreme Court cases, October term 2025-2026

    The Supreme Court began hearing cases for the term on October 6, 2025. The court's yearly term begins on the first Monday in October and lasts until the first Monday in October the following year. The court generally releases the majority of its decisions by mid-June.[8]

    See also

    External links

    Footnotes

    1. ↑ Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission docket number is 25-567
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Supreme Court of the United States, "25-406 FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION V. AT&T, INC. QP", January 9, 2026
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Supreme Court of the United States, "25-567 VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC. V. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION," January 9, 2026
    4. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "No. 25-406," accessed February 10, 2026
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Oyez, "Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T, Inc.," accessed February 10, 2026 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Oyez" defined multiple times with different content
    6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
    7. ↑ Supreme Court of the United States, "No. 25-567," accessed February 17, 2026
    8. ↑ SupremeCourt.gov, "The Supreme Court at Work: The Term and Caseload," accessed January 24, 2022
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