Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

These consolidated appeals arose from claims that major telecommunications carriers assisted the government with intelligence gathering following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Plaintiffs challenged the legality of the telecommunications companies' participation in the surveillance program. At issue was the constitutionality of section 802 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C. 1885a, which allowed for immunity for the telecommunications companies. The court concluded that the statute was constitutional and did not violate Articles I and III of the Constitution or the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly, the district court's grant of the government's motion to dismiss was affirmed as to the challenged section 802 claims.

Six weeks after the Regulatory Commission of Alaska approved the 2007 Access Charge Rates long distance telephone companies pay to local telephone companies, an association of local telephone companies realized that five of the rates the Regulatory Commission approved were based upon an erroneous spreadsheet the association included in its rate filings. The association requested that the Regulatory Commission correct the rates. The Regulatory Commission corrected the rates prospectively, but concluded retrospective application was barred by the Supreme Court's case law on retroactive ratemaking. The superior court agreed that retrospective application of the adjusted rates was impermissible, and the association appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its decision in "Matanuska Electric Association, Inc. v. Chugach Electric Association, Inc." (prohibiting retroactive ratemaking in "second look" cases), but held that the Regulatory Commission has the authority to implement corrections of some procedural mistakes starting when notice of a mistake is given. The Court remanded to the Regulatory Commission to determine the type of error that occurred in this case and whether the error should be corrected retrospectively.

Plaintiff, a resident of Los Angeles, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and similarly situated individuals challenging the city's telephone users tax (TUT) and seeking refund of funds collected under the TUT over the previous two years. At issue was whether the Government Code section 910 allowed taxpayers to file a class action claim against a municipal government entity for the refund of local taxes. The court held that neither Woosley v. State of California, which concerned the interpretation of statutes other than section 910, nor article XIII, section 32 of the California Constitution, applied to the court's determination of whether section 910 permitted class claims that sought the refund of local taxes. Therefore, the court held that the reasoning in City of San Jose v. Superior Court, which permitted a class claim against a municipal government in the context of an action for nuisance under section 910, also permitted taxpayers to file a class claim seeking the refund of local taxes under the same statute. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

The Oklahoma Publishing Company (The Oklahoman) and World Publishing Company (Tulsa World) (collectively, Publishers), filed open records requests with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of State Finance (OSF). Both the Oklahoman and Tulsa World sought to release of birth dates of all state employees. In addition, the Tulsa World requested employee identification numbers. The Oklahoma Public Employees Association (OPEA) filed two suits against OPM and OSF requesting declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to bar the release of employees' birth dates. The second suit also sought to bar employee identification numbers from disclosure. The district court consolidated the cases. All parties filed motions for summary judgment. Relying on an opinion of the Oklahoma Attorney General, the trial court sustained OPEA's and OPM's motions. It ordered that the state agencies be given sixty daysâ notice to report their decisions on whether disclosure of date of birth requests would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy; whether public access could be denied to employee identification numbers; and that legislative staff records were exempt from disclosure under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that Oklahoma law already contains a non-exclusive list of examples of information that if released, would constitute an unwarranted invasion of State employees' personal privacy. As guidance, the Court held that where a claim of invasion of privacy is made, courts should use a case-by-case balancing test to determine whether personal information is subject to release. If significant privacy interests are at stake while the public's interest in the disclosed information is minimal, release of that information "would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

This action stemmed from the Federal Communications Commission's ("FCC") "ISP Remand Order", which imposed a new compensation regime for ISP-bound traffic, i.e., internet service provider-bound traffic. Plaintiff, which was a competitive local exchange carrier ("CLEC"), maintained that the ISP Remand Order applied when the carrier originating the call and the carrier terminating the call were both CLECs. Defendant and the California Public Utilities Commission ("CPUC") contended that the ISP Remand Order's compensation regime applied only to traffic between a CLEC and an incumbent local exchange carrier ("ILEC"). CPUC agreed with defendant's limited reading of the reach of the compensation regime, finding it inapplicable to the ISP-bound traffic originating with plaintiff and terminated by defendant, and so it assessed against plaintiff charges consistent with defendant's state-filed tariff. Plaintiff then sued defendant and the CPUC in federal district court, alleging that the ISP Remand Order preempted their attempts to assess plaintiff charges for ISP-bound traffic based on state-filed tariffs. The district court granted summary judgment to defendant and CPUC, agreeing with their argument that the ISP Remand Order did not apply to CLEC-CLEC traffic. The court agreed with plaintiff and with the analysis contained in an amicus brief filed upon its request by the FCC, that the ISP Remand Order's compensation regime applied to ISP-bound traffic exchanged between two CLECs. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment.

This action arose under section 628 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 151, where the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") issued an order adopting rules to close the so-called terrestrial loophole. Petitioners contended that the FCC lacked statutory authority to regulate the withholding of terrestrial programing. The court held that given section 628's broad language and purpose, the court saw nothing in the statute that unambiguously precluded the FCC from extending its program access rules to terrestrially delivered programming. Nor could the court see any merit in petitioners' contention that the FCC's rules violated the First Amendment or in their various Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., challenges, with one exception. The court held however, that the FCC did act arbitrarily and capriciously by deciding to treat certain conduct involving terrestrial programing withholding as categorically "unfair" for purposes of section 628. Accordingly, the court vacated only that portion of the FCC's order and remanded for further proceedings.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 56, required incumbent local exchange carriers ("LECs"), providers of local telephone service, to share their physical networks with competitive LECs at cost-based rates. This suit arose when, in the wake of the Federal Communication Commission's ("FCC") Triennial Review Remand Order, respondent notified competitive LECs that it would no longer provide entrance facilities at cost-based rates for either backhauling or interconnection, but would instead charge higher rates. At issue was whether an incumbent provider of local telephone services must make certain transmission facilities available to competitors at cost-based rates. The court held that the FCC had advanced a reasonable interpretation of its regulations, i.e., that to satisfy its duty under 47 U.S.C. 251(c)(2), an incumbent LEC must make its existing entrance facilities available to competitors at cost-based rates if the facilities were to be used for interconnection, and the Court deferred to the FCC's views.

A California local exchange carrier ("LEC") filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") alleging a violation of 47 C.F.R. 20.11(b) when the LEC unilaterally set a rate and began billing petitioner, a provider of commercial mobile radio services ("CMRS") in California, for the cost of terminating its traffic. At issue was whether the FCC erred in allowing a state agency to determine the rate for traffic that was wholly intrastate pursuant to section 20.11(b). The court held that the FCC's policy of allowing state agencies to set such rates was consistent with the dual regulatory scheme assumed in the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 151, which granted the FCC authority over interstate communications but reserved wholly intrastate matters for the states.