D.C. District Court Rejects Broadcaster's Pro Se Appeal
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia doesn’t have jurisdiction over a radio broadcaster’s appeal of FCC decisions rejecting his arguments that an expired FM construction permit should be reinstated, it said in an opinion in docket 1:21-cv-2050…
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Tuesday (see 2107290070). The case concerns Urban One Broadcasting Network managing member William Johnson’s repeated attempts to have the FM construction permit for Cross City, Florida restored after it expired in 2014. Johnson, whose company has no connection to large Maryland-based broadcaster Urban One, represented his company pro se before the court. That alone is sufficient to dismiss the case, said Tuesday’s opinion from District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. “It has been the law for the better part of two centuries that a corporation may appear in the federal courts only through licensed counsel,” it said. The U.S. Courts of Appeals also have jurisdiction over FCC decisions, not the district courts, the opinion said. “By statute, the federal district courts lack jurisdiction to review FCC administrative decisions.” Johnson had filed an appeal before the D.C. Circuit but it was dismissed after he failed to prosecute it. The district court also rejected the appeal because Johnson has ongoing filings at the FCC.