Source: https://openjurist.org/627/f2d/322/mci-telecommunications-corporation-v-federal-communications-commission
Timestamp: 2017-09-23 04:32:59
Document Index: 554669530

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 204', '§ 203', '§ 204', '§ 201', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 204', '§ 203', '§ 203', '§ 8']

627 F2d 322 McI Telecommunications Corporation v. Federal Communications Commission | OpenJurist
627 F. 2d 322 - McI Telecommunications Corporation v. Federal Communications Commission
627 F2d 322 McI Telecommunications Corporation v. Federal Communications Commission
627 F.2d 322
200 U.S.App.D.C. 269
Communications, Inc. and N-Triple-C Inc., Petitioners,
Southern Pacific Communications Co. Aeronautical Radio, Inc.
Tele-Communications Association
Western Union Telegraph Company, Intervenors.
Decided April 2, 1980.
II. THE 1977 AND 1978 FCC DECISIONS
We shall also deny MCI's and Conrail's request for a "roll back" of WATS rates to pre-1974 levels, i. e., the tariff in effect prior to the filing of Transmittal No. 11935 (which was found unjustified and therefore unlawful in Docket No. 19989, WATS, supra ). We had hoped the Docket No. 19989 record would be sufficient to permit us to affirmatively approve AT&T's tariff filing or prescribe alternatives. However, the record was insufficient to allow us to approve or prescribe rates and we found a "roll-back" could not serve the public interest basically because of the confusion it would cause for subscribers. See 59 FCC2d at 709. As to MCI's instant "roll back" request we continue to believe that such a temporary "roll back," pending submission of a revised filing, could create substantial confusion and administrative difficulties for existing and potential WATS subscribers.
If it chooses to proceed under § 204(a),54 the FCC must first decide between holding hearings on the carrier's proposed tariff revisions or allowing them to become permanently effective without hearings immediately after the 90 day public notice period provided by § 203(b)(1).55 If the FCC decides to hold hearings, it then must decide between suspending the proposed revisions pending a final FCC decision on their lawfulness or allowing them to become effective in the interim. The FCC may, however, suspend proposed tariff revisions for only five months; if the FCC has not reached a final decision on their lawfulness by then, § 204(a) explicitly provides that the proposed revisions "shall go into effect . . . ."56 If the proposals are for new services or increased charges, the FCC may order the carrier to keep track of the amounts customers pay to facilitate the FCC's additional power to require refunds to customers, if justified, of all or a part of the money so collected, upon completion of the FCC's investigation and a determination by it under § 201(b) of the statute as to what revisions are just and reasonable.
Section 204(b) states that its requirements are effective "(n)otwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a) of this section"62 i. e., § 204(a) but that does not necessarily mean § 204(b) must always prevail whenever tariff revisions are to go into effect temporarily. This interpretation is buttressed by the fact that § 204(a) dictates what occurs absent any timely FCC action: the proposed revisions automatically go into effect under § 204(a) "(i)f the (FCC) proceeding has not been concluded and an order made within the period of the suspension . . . ."63 Section 204(b), on the other hand, sets forth the allowable results of an affirmative FCC action: the FCC "may allow part of a charge, classification, regulation or practice to go into effect . . . ,"64 if the required written showing is made and an opportunity provided for public comment. Congress thus seems to have envisioned that the FCC could, in its discretion, determine that in some instances the procedures envisioned in § 204(a) may not be appropriate, and that just and reasonable tariffs can be established in part or temporarily with the § 204(b) showing.65
B. The Nature of the FCC's 1976 Decision
. . . This shift would decrease MTS revenues, possibly requiring a rate increase for MTS, and might lead to an adverse impact on the revenue requirements for intrastate service as a result of changes in the separations data. Moreover, both MTS and WATS are switched services, with characteristics distinct from those of private line service, and we are not prepared to warrant that removal of the restrictions on WATS would lead to the benefits which we foresee for private line service (see paragraphs 75-88, infra ). Accordingly, we will not require removal of the restrictions on sharing and resale of WATS. In view of this action, we are not reviewing AT&T's present practices under and interpretation of its MTS and WATS tariffs.
IV. THE REMEDY HERE
American Tel. & Tel. Co., 38 F.C.C.2d 984, 987 (1973), aff'd sub nom. Nader v. FCC, 520 F.2d 182 (D.C.Cir.1975). The statute relating to the possibility of refunds provides that:
Aeronautical Radio, Inc. v. FCC, No. 77-1333 (D.C.Cir.). We obviously intimate no views on the issues presented in that case
Regulatory Policies Concerning Resale and Shared Use of Common Carrier Services and Facilities, 60 F.C.C.2d 261, 290-91 (1976), aff'd on other grounds sub nom. American Tel. & Tel. Co. v. FCC, 572 F.2d 17 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 875, 99 S.Ct. 213, 58 L.Ed.2d 190 (1977)
Section 203(a) of the statute prohibits collecting charges for, and otherwise providing communication services by wire or radio unless a description of those charges and services is on file with the FCC. The notice provision in § 203(b)(1) provides:
47 U.S.C. § 203(b)(1) (1976).
Aeronautical Radio and the Air Transport Association argue that MCI is effectively attacking the FCC's 1976 decision, not its 1977 and 1978 decisions, and that MCI's petition for review is therefore untimely. The FCC joins that argument only if we find that MCI is attacking the FCC's authority to delay implementation of its 1976 decision. FCC Br. 27 n. 26. We view the FCC's 1977 and 1978 decisions as separate and distinct from the one issued in 1976, and we do not interpret MCI's petition as challenging the FCC's authority to continue the effectiveness of tariffs for a reasonable time, pending a final determination as to whether they are just and reasonable and subject to an accounting order for possible future refunds. The FCC's 1977 decision found AT&T's 1977 WATS tariffs filing insufficient; it was not simply a replay of the 1976 decision. The effectiveness of the 1973 to 1976 revisions was continued in the 1977 and 1978 decisions solely because of the perceived deficiencies in AT&T's 1977 filing. We find no timeliness problem here. ABC v. FCC, 191 F.2d 492, 500 (D.C.Cir. 1951)
412 U.S. 669, 93 S.Ct. 2405, 37 L.Ed.2d 254 (1973)
412 U.S. at 697, 93 S.Ct. at 2421
372 U.S. 658, 83 S.Ct. 984, 10 L.Ed.2d 52 (1963)
Id. at 664 and 665-66, 83 S.Ct. at 987-988 (footnotes omitted).
Society's interest in avoiding undue delay in criminal trials stems from a general presumption that governmental delay is unfair: "Despite the difficulties of proving, or disproving, actual harm in most cases, it seems that inherent in prosecutorial delay is 'potential substantial prejudice' . . . ." Dickey v. Florida, 398 U.S. 30, 54, 90 S.Ct. 1564, 1577, 26 L.Ed.2d 26 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring; citation omitted). The right to prompt judicial redress is basic to our system of justice. In Klopfer v. North Carolina, 386 U.S. 213, 223, (87 S.Ct. 988, 993, 18 L.Ed.2d 1) (1967), for example, where the government's delay in the prosecution for criminal trespass of a civil rights demonstrator was found to be unjustified under the Constitution's speedy trial clause, the court noted that the right to quick resolution of controversies "has its roots at the very foundation of our English law heritage. Its first articulation in modern jurisprudence appears to have been made in Magna Carta (1215), wherein it was written, 'We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right' . . . ." (Footnote omitted). Regarding the application of the constitutional speedy trial right at least in quasi-criminal administrative proceedings, see Goldman, Administrative Delay and Judicial Relief, 66 Mich.L.Rev. 1423, 1436-39 (1978)
In Watson v. Memphis, 373 U.S. 526, 83 S.Ct. 1314, 10 L.Ed.2d 529 (1963), for example, the Court compelled the prompt desegregation of the public parks and other municipal recreational facilities in Memphis because segregation in such places had been held unlawful almost eight years earlier
Id. at 529-30, 83 S.Ct. at 1316-1317 (footnote omitted). Cf. Randall v. Sumter School District Number 2, 232 F.Supp. 786, 788-91 (E.D.S.C.1964) (defense of plaintiff's failure to exhaust administrative remedies rejected because delay and school board's inaction showed remedy "is for naught"). Here a substantial period has elapsed since the FCC's 1976 decision finding AT& T's 1973 to 1976 WATS tariff revisions are not supported by the data AT&T produced, the FCC itself has reiterated its 1976 conclusions in its 1977 and 1978 decisions, and it appears to us that the FCC might have proceeded with greater dispatch.
Indeed, in Addison v. Holly Hill Fruit Products, Inc., 322 U.S. 607, 619, 64 S.Ct. 1215, 1222, 88 L.Ed. 1488 (1944), the court remanded for an agency interpretation "with all deliberate speed" of a statutory term in the Fair Labor Standards Act so that the protections Congress mandated for workers would not be delayed
See Smith v. Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 270 U.S. 587, 591, 46 S.Ct. 408, 410, 70 L.Ed. 747 (1926) ("(p)roperty may be as effectively taken by long-continued and unreasonable delay in putting an end to confiscatory rates as by an express affirmance of them"); White v. Mathews, 434 F.Supp. 1252, 1261 (D.Conn.1976) ("(w)hen the government does not act with reasonable promptness, those claiming (benefits) . . . are required to bear an unreasonable delay and suffer unwarranted deprivation of that which is lawfully theirs"), aff'd, 559 F.2d 852, 858-60 (2d Cir. 1977). See generally, K. Davis, Administrative Law of the Seventies § 8.08 (1976); B. Schwartz, Administrative Law 67-93 (1976); Goldman, supra note 92, at 1434-35