Securus, Others Object to FCC Bid To Keep Previous ICS Case Held in Abeyance
Securus Technologies and others objected to an FCC motion asking a court to keep a judicial freeze on challenges to a 2013 commission order capping interstate inmate calling service rates. They asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.…
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Circuit to dismiss as moot the challenges to the 2013 order when a 2015 FCC order restricting interstate and intrastate ICS rates and fees takes effect. The FCC recently asked the court to continue to hold the case (Securus v. FCC, No. 13-1280) in abeyance until the D.C. Circuit resolves petitions for review of the agency's recent order, or until a related filing period expires (see 1512080069). That FCC suggestion "is inappropriate under basic mootness doctrine,” said a joint response from Securus, other ICS providers and correctional authorities. They said the FCC acknowledged that the 2015 rules will, when they take effect, supersede the interim interstate rate cap and rules in the 2013 order. “Yet rather than acknowledge that eliminating the rules now under review will grant petitioners and intervenors the relief they seek and moot these cases, the FCC asks this Court to continue to hold these cases in abeyance,” they said. “The FCC’s real intention seems to be to keep the rules from the 2013 Order in a state of suspended animation so that they can be brought back to life in the event the 2015 Order is struck down in whole or in part.” If the 2015 order is vacated, the parties can debate then whether the 2013 order is automatically revived without further agency action, said Securus, joined by petitioners the Arizona Department of Corrections, CenturyLink, Global Tel-Link, Mississippi Department of Corrections and South Dakota Department of Corrections, and by intervenors the Arkansas Department of Correction, Barnstable County (Massachusetts) Sheriff’s Office, Indiana Department of Correction and Telmate.