• by Wendy Davis , October 1, 2025

The Federal Communications Commission violated T-Mobile's constitutional right to a jury trial by fining the company $92 million for sharing wireless customers' location data, the Chamber of Commerce contends in court papers filed this week.

"The FCC’s orders flagrantly violated the Constitution," the business group writes, adding that the agency should have had to prove its allegations to a "neutral" judge and jury.

Instead of presenting its case to a judge and jury, "the FCC made its case to itself," the business group adds in a friend-of-the-court brief filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Chamber of Commerce is urging that court to grant T-Mobile's request for a new hearing in the matter.

The group's papers come in a battle between T-Mobile and the FCC that began in 2020, when the agency proposed fining T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon for selling access to customers geolocation data to aggregators that resold the data. 

The data sales first came to light in 2018, when The New York Times reported that a Missouri sheriff used geolocation data provided by Securus Technology to track other law enforcement officers, without court orders. Securus had obtained the location data from the phone carriers.

Around one year later, Vice Media's Motherboard detailed how a journalist was able to pay a “bounty hunter” $300 to track a phone's location to a neighborhood in Queens. 

The carriers have said they no longer sell location data.

Last year, the FCC fined the three carriers nearly $200 million. They paid the fines then sued to vacate them.

T-Mobile brought suit in the D.C. Circuit, while AT&T sued in the 5th Circuit and Verizon sued in the 2nd Circuit. (Verizon's $47 million fine was upheld earlier this month by the 2nd Circuit; it's not yet clear whether Verizon will seek a new hearing.)

In April, the 5th Circuit struck down AT&T's $57 million fine on the grounds that it violated the company's right to trial by jury.

But in August, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit came to the opposite conclusion regarding T-Mobile, ruling that the company waived its right to a jury by paying the fine. The panel said T-Mobile could have refused to pay, at which point the FCC could have initiated a collection action that would have entitled the carrier to a jury trial.

T-Mobile recently asked the court to revisit that ruling, arguing that failing to pay the fine would have had consequences -- including a risk of "reputational harm."

The carrier also argued that the court should reconsider whether the location data at issue was subject to privacy rules.

The company takes the position that the FCC can only impose a privacy fine for revealing data directly tied to voice services -- meaning that data that would reveal customers' locations when they were talking on the telephone. The location data at the center of the fine came from non-voice services -- such as the Life Alert program, which sends medical help to people.

The appellate panel rejected that argument, writing that carriers were legally required "to protect all customer location information, regardless of whether the customer is on a call."

Earlier this week, the appellate court directed the FCC to respond to T-Mobile's arguments by October 14.

On Wednesday, the FCC asked the court to halt proceedings in the case due to the shutdown of the federal government.

"Absent a further Congressional appropriation, the United States is required to impose significant restrictions on the ability of many of its employees to carry out their ordinary duties," counsel for the FCC and Justice Department wrote.

They added that some government attorneys are prohibited from working during the shutdown, except in "very limited circumstances" such as “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”