Opinion ID: 6930056
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Atlantic City Order

Text: TDS seeks review of three determinations made in the Atlantic City order: first, that the grant of Thompson’s application should be conditioned on the abrogation of paragraph 16 of the option agreement between Thompson and TDS; second, that the application should not be conditioned on the abrogation of the supermajority agreement between Thompson and the other lottery applicants; and third, that Amcell had not violated § 310(d) of the Communications Act by exercising de facto control over the Atlantic City cellular system. We hold that TDS has standing to challenge all three components of the order. The abrogation of paragraph 16 eliminated a contractual right that TDS possessed. That right had commercial value both as a direct restriction on Thompson and as the predicate for a common law action against third parties who might interfere with the contractual relation between Thompson and TDS. Loss of a valuable contractual interest in a licensee is an injury sufficient to invoke our jurisdiction. See, e.g., Granik v. FCC, 234 F.2d 682, 684 (D.C.Cir.1956). The Commission argues that the injury would not be redressed by a favorable decision on the merits, as TDS’s chances for ultimate control of the license depend on Thompson’s willingness to sell and Amcell’s willingness to waive its right to block the sale under the supermajority clause. Although TDS secured Thompson’s assent to the provision as a first step toward the eventual acquisition of his license, the provision itself had value that reversal of the order would reinstate. Redress of the injury “does not depend on the actions of third parties not before the court,” Orange Park Florida T.V., Inc. v. FCC, 811 F.2d 664, 672 n. 18 (D.C.Cir.1987), and TDS has standing to challenge the abrogation of paragraph 16. The second and third determinations made in the order are best considered as a package, for TDS views Amcell’s use of the super-majority clause as one facet of Amcell’s exercise of de facto control over Thompson. In essence TDS maintains that the Commission’s improper application of § 310(d) has unlawfully permitted Amcell to injure TDS by wielding the supermajority clause to'block TDS from exercising its option to acquire Thompson’s interest in the license. The Commission does not dispute that TDS’s claim of injury is adequately concrete, but instead argues that the injury is not fairly traceable to the Commission’s order and that even a successful challenge to the order will not redress the harm. Recent decisions have clarified the application of the traceability and redressability requirements to suits that complain of administrative action that allows third parties to harm the complainant. Because the standing inquiry in such cases turns on the “ ‘unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts,’ ” Defenders of Wildlife, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2137 (quoting ASARCO, Inc. v. Radish, 490 U.S. 605, 615, 109 S.Ct. 2037, 2044, 104 L.Ed.2d 696 (1989)), the party seeking review bears a heightened burden to adduce facts that demonstrate the causal link between the agency action and the injury and that show the injury will “likely” be redressed by the relief sought. See id., — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2136-37; The Freedom Republicans, Inc. v. Feder al Election Comm’n, 13 F.3d 412, 416 (D.C.Cir.1994); Branton v. FCC, 993 F.2d 906, 910 (D.C.Cir.1993), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1610, 128 L.Ed.2d 338 (1994). Nonetheless, “mere indirectness of causation is no barrier to standing, and thus, an injury worked on one party by another through a third party intermediary may suffice.” National Wildlife Fed’n v. Hodel, 839 F.2d 694, 705 (D.C.Cir.1988). In this case we need not attempt any broad explication of the justiciability of indirect injury, for one narrow proposition at least is clear: injurious private conduct is fairly traceable to the administrative action contested in the suit if that action authorized the conduct or established its legality. See Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 45 n. 25, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1928 n. 25, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976) (noting cases providing that privately inflicted injury is traceable to government action if the injurious conduct “would have been illegal without that action”); Public Citizen v. FTC, 869 F.2d 1541, 1547 & n. 9 (D.C.Cir.1989); Humane Soc’y of the United States v. Hodel, 840 F.2d 45, 51 n. 5 (D.C.Cir.1988); International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union v. Donovan, 722 F.2d 795, 810-11 (D.C.Cir.1983), ce rt. denied, 469 U.S. 820, 105 S.Ct. 93, 83 L.Ed.2d 39 (1984). The Atlantic City order, applying the Act and the Commission’s precedent, affirmatively upheld the legality of the very provisions whose exercise has inflicted injury on TDS, provisions that a contrary holding would have abrogated. The Commission protests that TDS’s injuries could not be redressed by a favorable resolution of the claim under § 310(d). Under “general Commission policy,” see Comm.Br. at 22, a determination that Thompson unlawfully ceded control to Amcell would require outright denial of Thompson’s application for the license. As TDS’s option only has value if Thompson obtains the license, TDS’s injury cannot be redressed by the present suit. The Commission concedes that under the Communications Act it has the power to remedy the violation by simply ousting Amcell from control of Thompson, thus preserving the value of TDS’s option; and Commission counsel has provided no authority even for the weaker assertion (first advanced in the appellate proceedings) that under “general policy” the application would be denied. The contingency upon which the Commission relies to defeat standing relates solely to the Commission’s own conduct in the future, rather than to the “unfettered choices made by independent actors not before the courts.” Defenders of Wildlife, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2137. Because the source of the contingency vitiates the rationale for more “exacting scrutiny” of redressability in genuine third-party standing cases, Freedom Republicans, 13 F.3d at 416, decisions in like cases have held the suit to be justiciable so long as the relief sought would constitute a “necessary first step on a path that could ultimately lead to relief fully redressing the injury.” Hazardous Waste Treatment Council v. EPA 861 F.2d 270, 273 (D.C.Cir.1988); see also International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, 722 F.2d at 811 n. 27. TDS may not prevail even if we vacate the Atlantic City order, but it cannot prevail unless we do so, and that is enough to ensure that the relief requested “mil produce tangible, meaningful results in the real world.” Common Cause v. DOE, 702 F.2d 245, 254 (D.C.Cir.1983).