A federal appeals court deferred to FCC interpretation of its...
A federal appeals court deferred to FCC interpretation of its rules, in an unpublished decision Wednesday (http://xrl.us/boa4gx). The call center software provider inContact had argued the FCC Wireline Bureau exceed its authority in finding the 60-day deadline to appeal a…
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USAC decision starts from the date of an invoice (CD Dec 17 p6). The bureau had denied inContact’s petition for review of a USAC decision, and the full commission upheld that order. In its opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the commission’s position that a USAC invoice is a “decision” that starts the countdown clock. “We see no basis for upsetting the Commission’s interpretation of its rule,” the court said. “When an aggrieved party appeals an invoice directly to the FCC, as occurred here, there is not necessarily anything other than the invoice itself that the agency is being asked to review.” The court declined to consider inContact’s argument that its due process rights were violated because it had no notice the invoice would be treated as a decision. The company only made a “cursory due process argument” in its application for FCC review, and “merely stated that it was denied the opportunity to challenge the accuracy of the charges because of the Bureau’s determination,” the unanimous court wrote. “Because inContact did not raise the issue of notice before the Commission, we may not consider it."