The U.S. Supreme Court granted the solicitor general’s unopposed motion to extend the deadline for petitioners’ opening brief to July 17 in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, said a text-only entry Friday (docket 22-451). The government’s responsive brief is now due Sept. 15, and the petitioners’ reply Oct. 16. The petitioners are vessel owners challenging the authority of the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to require them to pay the salaries of the federal observers they must carry on board. The case is seen as having broad implications for the deference afforded agencies under the 1984 Chevron doctrine to properly interpret and enforce the federal statutes they have authority over (see 2305010038).
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Northstar Wireless' cert petition on the FCC's denying designated entity AWS-3 auction credits to Northstar and another Dish Network (see 2301230007), per a notice Friday in docket 22-672. The court said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn't take part in the consideration or decision. The cert petition denial raises the prospects of a re-auction of spectrum soon, New Street Research's Blair Levin wrote in an investors' note Friday. The FCC doesn't have auction authority now, but that probably will be restored in 2023's second half, he said. Dish already paid $515 million and would be on the hook for any shortfall in a re-auction of the licenses, said Levin, though he deems such a shortfall unlikely.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the cert petition of ML Genius to review the 2nd Circuit U.S. Appeals Court’s March 31 dismissal of its breach-of-contract claim against Google, said an entry Monday in docket 22-121. The case involved Genius, an online platform for transcribing and annotating song lyrics, and its requirement that visitors agree to its contractual terms as a condition for using its services. Those terms include the promise not to reproduce the contents of Genius’ platform. Genius alleged Google contractually bound itself to those terms but in blatant breach of that contract “stole Genius’s labors for its own competing commercial purposes.” SCOTUS invited Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in December to file a brief expressing the views of the U.S., and Prelogar told the court May 23 that further review wasn’t “warranted” because the Copyright Act preempts the Genius breach-of-contract claim (see 2305240008).
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the June 2 motion of all parties to extend the merits brief schedule in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, said a text-only docket entry Friday (docket 22-451). Petitioner Loper Bright’s brief is due July 10, the respondents’ brief Aug. 30, said the entry. The case could have broad implications for the Chevron deference afforded agencies to properly interpret and enforce the federal statutes under their authority (see 2305010038).
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a petition from two dozen iPhone users seeking uniformity on appellate courts' decision-making over whether FCC guidelines “impliedly preempt” state law claims about RF safety (see 2301270065). In rejecting the case, SCOTUS, as is the norm, didn't provide reasoning. The petition sought a reversal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 26 opinion, affirming the district court’s summary judgment for Apple, based on federal law preemption of the state law claims. Children’s Health Defense and other RF safety advocates urged the court to hear the case. Matthew Wessler, lead lawyer for plaintiffs, and Children’s Health Defense didn’t comment Monday. SCOTUS also denied Berkeley, California's motion to file an amicus brief (see 2303160007).
The U.S. Supreme Court distributed for the justices’ May 18 conference the cert petition from two dozen iPhone users seeking to bring uniformity to the appellate courts’ decision-making over whether FCC guidelines “impliedly preempt” state law claims about RF radiation cellphone safety (see 2301270065), said a text-only docket entry Tuesday (docket 22-698). The petition seeks a reversal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 26 opinion, affirming the district court’s summary judgment for Apple, based on federal law preemption of the state law claims.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a petition (docket 22-451) in a maritime case (see 2305010058) could put the Chevron doctrine on “death watch,” Free State Foundation President Randolph May blogged Tuesday. “For over a decade, I have suggested that the Chevron doctrine is in tension with fundamental separation of powers principles,” May wrote: “Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider overruling Chevron ‘or at least clarify’ that agency interpretations are not entitled to deference in some instances of ‘statutory silence.’ With a Court majority that is more attuned -- and devoted to -- foundational separation of powers principles, the Supreme Court's coming reconsideration of Chevron is welcome.” Experts including May have noted the evolving major questions doctrine is replacing Chevron as a test for when the courts should give regulatory agencies deference (see 2302080064). “If Chevron is overturned or even narrowed meaningfully, one consequence is likely to be curbing the power of the administrative state,” May wrote. Doing so may also “force Congress to take more responsibility for writing laws that more specifically delimit agency actions -- that is, to write less ambiguous laws,” he said.
The Supreme Court granted the Nov. 10 petition (docket 22-451) of a group of vessel owners challenging the authority of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) to require them to pay the salaries of the federal observers they must carry on board to enforce the agency’s regulations. It's a case that could have broad implications for the deference afforded agencies to properly interpret and enforce the federal statutes they have authority over. The petition in Loper Bright Enterprises et al v. Raimondo et al, asked whether, under a “proper application” of Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the MSA implicitly grants NMFS the power to force domestic vessels to pay the salaries of the monitors they must carry. It also asked whether SCOTUS should “overrule” Chevron to “at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.” Chevron was the landmark 1984 decision in which SCOTUS defined the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of a statute that it administers. In a country “that values limited government and the separation of powers,” the “extraordinary power” of a federal agency to require vessel owners to pay the salaries of onboard inspectors “should require the clearest of congressional grants,” said the Nov. 10 petition. The case is on appeal from the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit, where a “divided panel” deferred to the agency “by purporting to identify silence in the statutory scheme," perceiving it as an "ambiguity" that called for Chevron "deference,” it said. “That is either a fundamental overreading of Chevron or a powerful argument for its overruling,” it said. Either way, SCOTUS “should grant review to impose sensible limits on agency deference,” it said. It asked SCOTUS to “reverse the clear agency overreach at issue here."
Apple seeks a 30-day deadline extension to April 14 to file its response to the Jan. 23 cert petition from two dozen iPhone users seeking uniformity in circuit courts’ rulings on cellphone safety, Apple attorney Joseph Palmore of Morrison Foerster wrote Supreme Court Clerk Scott Harris in a letter Wednesday (docket 22-698). Palmore’s Jan. 26 waiver said Apple wouldn’t file a response to the petition unless SCOTUS requested one, which the court did Feb. 13 (see 2302140010). The extension is warranted “because of the press of other matters and the need to analyze the issues raised by the petition,” Palmore told Harris. The petition said there's profound inconsistency among the appellate courts over whether certain FCC guidelines “impliedly preempt” state-law claims about cellphone safety (see 2301270065). SCOTUS has a “golden opportunity” to bring uniformity to the decision-making, it said. The petition seeks a reversal of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Aug. 26 opinion affirming the district court’s summary judgment for Apple, based on federal law preemption of the state-law claims.
The Supreme Court denied Blanca Telephone’s Jan. 9 cert petition seeking enforcement of the 10th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s May 2021 mandate directing the FCC to collect an old USF debt only through “nonpunitive administrative offset” means, said a text-only entry (docket 22-645). Blanca alleged in a Jan. 16 supplement that the FCC retaliated against the ILEC’s cert petition by abruptly canceling its spectrum lease application for failure to make payment on a delinquent USF debt (see 2301190001). Blanca didn't comment Tuesday.