On March 8, 2018, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation randomly selected the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to hear the petitions for review of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Restoring Internet Freedom Order. Under FCC rules, petitioners of FCC orders have ten days from the date of publication of the order to file an appeal and notify the FCC that they would like be considered for the judicial lottery drawing. In this case, petitions had been filed in the D.C. Circuit and the Ninth Circuit.

The decision is notable because the last three appeals of previous FCC net neutrality orders were heard in the D.C. Circuit. The last time the Ninth Circuit heard a challenge of FCC net neutrality rules was nearly 15 years ago, in Brand X Internet Services v. FCC, which led to the Supreme Court’s seminal opinion on the FCC’s classification of cable modem service in 2004, National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services. The Brand X decision in turn ushered in a decade of deregulatory policy in the broadband ecosystem.

The Ninth Circuit’s most recent foray into broadband policy came last month when an en banc panel held that the “common carrier exemption” in Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act—which prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices—was “activity-based” and therefore that the FTC could bring a suit against AT&T Mobility for alleged violations of Section 5 related to the company’s non-common-carrier broadband service. A previous panel had held that AT&T Mobility was entirely exempt from Section 5 based on its “status” as a common carrier, raising significant questions about the boundaries of FTC and FCC jurisdiction. The en banc decision brings the Ninth Circuit back into harmony with other circuits that have addressed the issue.

We’re monitoring the appeal and will continue to update this blog with developments.

Ninth Circuit Selected to Hear Consolidated Net Neutrality Appeals