Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Seitz and Welter were partners in Wasco, a property management company. Greg was also a police officer. Elgin’s police chief confronted Greg with the emails showing that Greg had used the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System (LEADS) to research cars parked in front of Wasco properties. Illinois limits use of LEADS to criminal justice purposes. The chief notified Gregg of a misconduct investigation regarding his use of LEADS. The city allegedly received its information after Tamara, Greg’s then wife and a fellow police officer, and Beeter accessed Greg’s email account and conveyed print-outs to the corporation counsel under cover of anonymity. Greg and Seitz sued Tamara and Beeter, alleging violations of the Federal Wiretap Act (FWA), the Stored Communications Act (SCA), and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and state law claims. They sued Elgin under the FWA. The district court dismissed the complaint against the city, concluding that the FWA, 18 U.S.C. 2511(1) prohibits “persons” from intercepting communications, but does not extend its definition of “person” to municipalities. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. A 1986 amendment permits suit against governmental units by adding “entity” to the text, but only for substantive provisions that identify an “entity” as a potential violator of that provision. View "Seitz v. City of Elgin" on Justia Law

The U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, 22 U.S.C. 7601, authorizes appropriations to fund nongovernmental efforts to combat HIV/AIDS worldwide, with conditions that: no funds “may be used to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution” and no funds may be used by an organization “that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution” (the Policy Requirement). To enforce the Policy Requirement, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Agency for International Development require funding recipients to agree that they oppose prostitution. Funding recipients, wishing to remain neutral on prostitution, sought a declaratory judgment that the Policy Requirement violates their First Amendment rights. The district court issued a preliminary injunction, barring the government from cutting off funding during the litigation. The Second Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed. The First Amendment “prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.” The Spending Clause grants Congress broad discretion to fund private programs for the general welfare and to limit the use of funds to ensure they are used in the manner intended. There is a distinction between conditions that define the limits of the spending program and specify the activities Congress wants to subsidize and conditions that seek to leverage funding to regulate speech outside the contours of the federal program itself. The Act’s other condition, prohibiting use of funds “to promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking,” ensures that federal funds will not be used for prohibited purposes. The Policy Requirement goes further and, by its very nature, affects protected conduct outside the scope of the federally funded program. The Requirement goes beyond preventing recipients from using private funds in a way that could undermine the federal program and requires them to pledge allegiance to government policy. View "Agency for Int'l Dev. v. Alliance for Open Soc'y Int'l, Inc." on Justia Law

Using FOIA requests directed to the South Carolina DMV, attorneys obtained names and addresses, then sent letters to more than 34,000 individuals, seeking clients for a lawsuit against car dealerships for violation of a state law. The letters were headed “ADVERTISING MATERIAL,” explained the lawsuit, and asked recipients to return an enclosed card to participate in the case. Recipients sued the attorneys, alleging violation of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (DPPA), 18 U.S.C. 2721(b)(4), by obtaining, disclosing, and using personal information from motor vehicle records for bulk solicitation without express consent. The district court dismissed, based on a DPPA exception permitting disclosure of personal information "for use in connection with any civil, criminal, administrative, or arbitral proceeding," including "investigation in anticipation of litigation." The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded. An attorney’s solicitation of clients is not a permissible purpose under the (b)(4) litigation exception. DPPA’s purpose of protecting privacy in motor vehicle records would be substantially undermined by application of the (b)(4) exception to the general ban on disclosure of personal information and ban on release of highly restricted personal information in cases there is any connection between protected information and a potential legal dispute. The Court noted examples of permissible litigation uses: service of process, investigation in anticipation of litigation, and execution or enforcement of judgments and orders. All involve an attorney’s conduct as an officer of the court, not a commercial actor, seeking a business transaction. A contrary reading of (b)(4) could affect interpretation of the (b)(6) exception, which allows an insurer and certain others to obtain DMV information for use in connection with underwriting, and the (b)(10) exception, which permits disclosure and use of personal information in connection with operation of private tollroads. View "Maracich v. Spears" on Justia Law

Northern Valley challenged the FCC's ruling that Northern Valley could not tariff long-distance carriers for calls to Northern Valley's non-paying customers. The court rejected Northern Valley's contention that the FCC's ruling contradicted two previous FCC orders because the FCC construed only the terms of the tariff at issue in those cases, not FCC regulations; the FCC reasonably interpreted and applied the relevant regulations; nothing in the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 153(53), precluded the FCC's approach in this case; and, therefore, the court upheld the FCC's decision that competitive long-distance carriers (CLECs) could not rely on tariffs to charge long-distance carriers for access to CLECs' non-paying customers. Finally, the court upheld the FCC's decision that Northern Valley's 90-day provision violated the two-year statute of limitations. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "Northern Valley Communications v. FCC, et al." on Justia Law

The Communications Act of 1934 requires state or local governments to act on siting applications for wireless facilities “within a reasonable period of time after the request is duly filed.” 47 U.S.C. 332(c)(7)(B)(ii). The FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling concluding that the phrase “reasonable period of time” is presumptively (but rebuttably) 90 days to process an application to place a new antenna on an existing tower and 150 days to process all other applications. The cities of Arlington and San Antonio challenged the Ruling. The Fifth Circuit found the statute ambiguous and upheld the FCC’s determination that section 201(b)’s broad grant of regulatory authority empowered it to administer section 332(c)(7)(B). The Supreme Court affirmed. Courts must apply the Chevron framework to an agency’s interpretation of a statutory ambiguity that concerns the scope of the agency’s statutory authority (i.e., its jurisdiction). The Court rejected a contention that Chevron deference was not appropriate because the FCC asserted jurisdiction over matters of traditional state and local concern. The statute explicitly supplants state authority. There is no case in which a general conferral of rule-making or adjudicative authority has been held insufficient to support Chevron deference for an exercise of that authority within the agency’s substantive field. A general conferral of rule-making authority validates rules for all the matters the agency is charged with administering. It is sufficient that the preconditions to deference under Chevron are satisfied because Congress has unambiguously vested the FCC with general authority to administer the Communications Act through rule-making and adjudication, and the interpretation at issue was promulgated in the exercise of that authority. View "Arlington v. Fed. Commc'n Comm'n" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this appeal concerned whether the Vermont Public Service Board had jurisdiction to regulate interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services provided in Vermont. The Board concluded that fixed VoIP was a "telecommunications service" under Vermont law and Vermont regulation of VoIP was not preempted by federal law because intrastate calls could be separately identified. The Board deferred consideration of what type of regulation to impose to a separate phase of the proceeding. On appeal, Comcast Phone of Vermont, LLC argued that the Board erred in not addressing whether interconnected fixed VoIP was an information service or telecommunications service under federal law because, according to Comcast, VoIP is an information service and therefore any regulation is preempted by federal law. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed that the Board must reach this question and remanded the matter for further proceedings. View "Investigation into Regulation of Voice Over Internet Protocol" on Justia Law

In 2008, the legislature enacted legislation to establish the Idaho Education Network (IEN), which was to be a high-bandwidth telecommunications distribution system for distance learning in every public school in the state. Syringa Networks, LLC (Syringa), an Idaho telecommunications company, entered into a “teaming agreement” with ENA Services, LLC (ENA). Pursuant to their agreement, ENA submitted a proposal in response to a request-for-proposals (RFP) with the Department of Administration, although the cover letter stated that both ENA and Syringa were responding jointly to the proposal. Qwest Communications Company, LLC, and Verizon Business Network Services, Inc., also submitted responsive proposals. The proposals were then scored based upon specific criteria; the ENA and Qwest proposals received the highest scores. The Department issued a letter of intent to award contracts to Qwest and ENA. One month later, it issued amendments to the two purchase orders to alter the scope of work that each would perform. Qwest became "the general contractor for all IEN technical network services" (providing the “backbone”) and ENA became "the Service Provider." The effect of these amendments was to make Qwest the exclusive provider of the backbone, which was what Syringa intended to provide as a subcontractor of ENA. Syringa filed this lawsuit against the Department, its director, the chief technology officer, ENA and Qwest. The district court ultimately dismissed Syringa’s lawsuit against all of the Defendants on their respective motions for summary judgment. Syringa then appealed the grants of summary judgment, and the State Defendants cross-appealed the refusal to award them attorney fees. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment dismissing all counts of the complaint except count three seeking to set aside the State's contract with Qwest on the ground that it was awarded in violation of the applicable statutes. Furthermore, the Court reversed Qwest’s award of attorney fees against Syringa. We remand to the trial court the determination of whether any of the State Defendants were entitled to an award of attorney fees against Syringa for proceedings in the district court. The Court awarded costs and attorney fees on appeal to ENA. Because the State Defendants and Syringa both prevailed only in part on appeal, the Court did not award them either costs or attorney fees on appeal. View "Syringa Networks v. Idaho Dept of Admin" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the FCC's three revisions to the interpretation of Section 224 of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 224. Section 224 provided a variety of advantages to certain types of firms seeking to attach their wires, cable, or other network equipment to utility poles. The FCC's Order allowed incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) to share the benefits of some of Section 224's provisions; reformulated the ceiling on the rate that pole-owning utilities could charge "telecommunications carriers" seeking to make pole attachments; and moved back the date as of which compensatory damages started to accrue in favor of parties filing successful complaints against utilities. The court upheld the FCC's view that ILECs were "providers of telecommunications services" for purposes of section 224(a)(4). Because the FCC's methodology was consistent with the unspecified cost terms contained in section 224(e), and the FCC's justifications were reasonable, the telecom rate revision warranted judicial deference. Petitioners' arguments regarding the refund period had no serious statutory basis. The court considered petitioners' many subsidiary arguments and found them all to be without merit. Accordingly, the court denied the petition. View "American Electric Power Serv. Corp., et al v. FCC, et al" on Justia Law

DISH, a direct broadcast satellite provider, challenged two orders of the Commission because they imposed "encoding rules," which limited the means of encoding that cable and satellite service providers could employ to prevent unauthorized access to their broadcasts. The court held that the FCC's decision to apply these encoding rules exceeded the agency's statutory authority. Consequently, the court need not reach DISH's alternate contention that the decision was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review. View "EchoStar Satellite, LLC v. FCC, et al" on Justia Law

Recognizing the growing importance of mobile data in a wireless market in which smartphones are increasingly common, the FCC adopted a rule requiring mobile-data providers to offer roaming agreements to other such providers on "commercially reasonable" terms. Verizon challenged the data roaming rule on multiple grounds. The court held that Title III of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 151 et seq., plainly empowered the FCC to promulgate the data roaming rule. And although the rule bears some marks of common carriage, the court deferred to the FCC's determination that the rule imposed no common carrier obligations on mobile-internet providers. In response to Verizon's remaining arguments, the court concluded that the rule did not effect an unconstitutional taking and was neither arbitrary nor capricious. View "Cellco Partnership v. FCC" on Justia Law