Opinion ID: 397839
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Untimeliness of WATCH's Petition to Deny

Text: 18 WATCH contends that it should have been accorded the status of a full party 13 to the transfer proceedings. Even though its petition to deny concededly was filed long after the expiration of the thirty-day period during which such petitions are accepted as timely, WATCH asserts that it lacked actual notice of the filing of Taft's application and that the thirty-day period therefore should have been tolled. This lack of notice is traced to the understanding of WATCH's president, from an interview with a Taft employee, that Taft would not file its transfer petition prior to December 1978 or January 1979. 14 19 The FCC declined to accept WATCH's petition to deny Taft's application; it termed the petition procedurally defective in that it does not meet the requirements with respect to timeliness, Initial Transfer Order, 73 F.C.C.2d at 657. 15 We agree with that conclusion insofar as it relates to the long period between the public notice of Taft's application on August 17, 1978 and WATCH's petition of March 19, 1979. WATCH, as an organization represented by counsel intimately familiar with the notice procedures employed by the FCC, cannot be heard to say that its failure to learn of the application was justified. 16 In addition, we note that WATCH indicated that it first learned of the application in mid-February of 1979, see Affidavit of Nancy Forbord (President of WATCH), J.A. 151, 152. Why it then waited more than thirty days before filing its petition is unexplained and perhaps inexplicable.