American Radio Relay League, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
524 F.3d 227 (2008)
- Written by Eric Cervone, LLM
Facts
Amateur radio operators, represented by the American Radio Relay League, Inc. (ARRL) (plaintiff), believed that broadband Internet data transmissions could cause spectrum interference with radio communications. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (defendant) proposed rules to regulate the broadband transmissions. The FCC based its proposal on five scientific studies. The FCC made portions of those studies available for public review but redacted internal FCC communications that summarized and critiqued the studies. The FCC claimed that, in reaching its decision, the FCC had not relied on the redacted portions. After the FCC finalized its rules, the ARRL sued the FCC in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, contending, among other things, that the FCC had violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq., by not making the redacted internal communications available for public review before finalizing the rules.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Rogers, J.)
Concurrence (Tatel, J.)
Concurrence/Dissent (Kavanaugh, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 789,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,200 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.