The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld more than $100 million in combined fines the Federal Communications Commission levied against Verizon and AT&T for illegally sharing customers' location data, rejecting the telecom giants' argument that the Constitution entitled them to a jury trial before the government could collect.
The vote was 8-1. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas stood alone in dissent, warning the ruling punishes companies that followed the rules and fought back through proper legal channels.
The case turned on a straightforward constitutional question: Does the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of jury trials in "suits at common law" require the government to put FCC fines before a jury? Roberts said no. The FCC's forfeiture orders, he wrote, are not binding in the way the companies claimed. A company that refuses to pay can force the agency into a collection lawsuit, and at that point, a judge and jury enter the picture.
The fines trace back to an investigation into how Verizon and AT&T handled their customers' location data. The Hill reported that the probe was spurred by reports that a Missouri sheriff was ultimately able to get access to some customers' location data through a third party. The FCC concluded the carriers had illegally shared that access, and the combined penalties exceeded $100 million.
Neither the name of the Missouri sheriff nor the identity of the third party that facilitated the data access has been publicly disclosed in connection with the ruling. The separate fine amounts for each company also remain unclear.
What is clear is that both companies challenged the fines on constitutional grounds, and lost decisively. The Supreme Court's opinion made plain that the FCC's administrative process does not offend the jury-trial guarantee, so long as companies retain the right to contest the fines in federal court if they choose not to pay.
Roberts was careful to note that the FCC's factual findings carry no final authority on their own. In the majority opinion, he wrote:
"And the Commission's factual findings are not conclusive."
That distinction matters. The FCC stresses that its forfeiture orders are not self-executing. A company that refuses to pay simply forces the agency to go to court to collect. At that stage, the company gets its day before a judge and jury. Roberts concluded that this structure passes constitutional muster.
"It thus does not offend the Constitution for the Commission to issue forfeiture orders without the involvement of a jury."
For conservatives who worry about the expanding reach of the administrative state, the ruling is a mixed bag. On one hand, the Court affirmed that agencies cannot issue final, binding penalties without judicial review. On the other, it blessed a process that lets a federal agency impose enormous fines first and leaves it to the company to fight its way into court afterward.
The distinction between "not binding" and "not coercive" is one that Thomas, in his dissent, refused to accept.
Justice Thomas has become the Court's most consistent voice against administrative overreach, and his dissent here was sharp. He argued that Verizon and AT&T did exactly what the legal system asks of regulated companies: they paid under protest, preserved their objections, and sued to get their money back. In a term where Thomas has repeatedly rebuked the majority for what he sees as misplaced priorities, this case fit the pattern.
"AT&T and Verizon did what courts ordinarily encourage: They paid under protest and filed suit to get their payments back."
Thomas went further, accusing the majority of penalizing good-faith compliance with government orders. His language was unusually direct.
"Today, the Court punishes AT&T and Verizon for complying with a government order that they in good faith believed was obligatory, diligently preserving their objection to that order, and then litigating that objection so effectively as to cause the Government to change its position years later."
That last phrase, "so effectively as to cause the Government to change its position years later", deserves attention. Thomas was pointing out that the companies' legal arguments were strong enough to move the government itself, yet the Court still ruled against them. In his view, the majority created a perverse incentive: companies that comply and challenge through proper channels get worse treatment than those that simply refuse to pay and wait for the government to sue.
The decision lands at a moment when the boundaries of federal agency authority are under intense scrutiny. The Supreme Court has been willing in recent terms to rein in administrative power, striking down broad regulatory interpretations and narrowing agency discretion in other contexts. This case, however, went the other way.
The 8-1 margin is notable. This was not a close call for the majority. Only Thomas saw a constitutional problem with the FCC's enforcement framework. That near-unanimity suggests the Court views administrative fines, at least those that can be contested in court, as fundamentally different from the kind of binding agency action that has drawn judicial skepticism elsewhere.
For the telecom industry, the practical effect is straightforward: the fines stand. Whether Verizon and AT&T will issue public responses to the ruling remains to be seen. Neither company's reaction was available as of Thursday morning.
The FCC, for its part, has maintained throughout the litigation that its process is fair. The agency's position is that forfeiture orders are essentially a first step, an administrative finding that a violation occurred and a penalty is warranted, not a final judgment. Companies can pay, or they can refuse and let the matter proceed to federal court. The Court agreed.
Still, the question of whether that theoretical right to a jury trial provides meaningful protection is worth asking. When a federal agency tells a company it owes $100 million, the pressure to pay, even "under protest", is enormous. Thomas's dissent captured that reality. The companies did everything right, and it did not matter.
This ruling adds to what has been an active stretch for the justices. The Court recently restored Alabama's redistricting authority in a closely watched election-law case, and it split 5-4 on a Mississippi death-row conviction over jury selection. The justices also allowed Vermont's social media addiction lawsuit against Meta to move forward, signaling a willingness to let major corporate liability cases proceed.
Across these decisions, the Court's internal divisions have been on full display. Thomas, in particular, has carved out a distinct position, skeptical of government power when it bypasses constitutional protections, even when the targets are large corporations that draw little public sympathy.
The FCC case is unlikely to generate the political heat of redistricting or criminal justice rulings. But its implications for how federal agencies enforce the law, and how much process companies are owed before the government takes their money, are significant. The administrative state just got a green light to keep doing what it has been doing. Eight justices said the system works. One said it does not.
When the government can fine you first and dare you to fight it in court later, the right to a jury trial starts to look less like a guarantee and more like an afterthought.