Schum v. FCC.

AuthorChang, Lynn
PositionRadio license transfer

SCHUM V. FCC

617 F. App'x 5 (D.C. Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 1672 (2016)

In Schum v. FCC, (1) the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the plaintiff's petition for review and appeal of an FCC action approving the transfer of a radio license from one of the plaintiff's companies to a separate entity. (2)

  1. BACKGROUND

    After a Texas state court found a judgment against the plaintiff personally, the plaintiff declared bankruptcy. The FCC approved a transfer of a radio license from The Watch, Ltd. (The Watch) to a different licensee after the bankruptcy court put up the license for auction. (3) The plaintiff is the sole owner of DFW Radio, Inc., a general partner of The Watch. (4) The plaintiff alleged that he was injured by the FCC's approval of the transfer. (5)

    The issue in this case was whether the plaintiff could prove injury to establish standing. (6) To proceed to a trial on the merits, the plaintiff must have shown a concrete injury that resulted from the FCC's actions. (7) To this end, the plaintiff attempted to assert three distinct injuries: (1) the FCC's approval terminated fees that the new licensee allegedly owed to The Watch; (8) (2) entry of a personal judgment against him resulted in lost job opportunities; (9) and (3) The Watch's valuation had fallen dramatically as a result of the action. (10)

  2. ANALYSIS

    The D.C. Circuit rejected all three of the plaintiff's contentions. (11) The D.C. Circuit found that the plaintiff did not suffer any injury in fact from the lost fees or the decline in value of The Watch because these were "merely derivative of harms suffered by the company," and are not personal injuries on which the plaintiff could obtain any form of recovery. (12) Further while the plaintiff's lost job opportunities may "arguably represent an injury in fact," they too fail to meet the "standing requirements of traceability and redressability." (13) The D.C. Circuit notes that the FCC's order is an ancillary action that "helped to effectuate" the Texas court case and the plaintiff's subsequent bankruptcy proceedings. (14) As a result, the injury cannot be traced to the FCC order. (15) In addition, the D.C. Circuit decided that all three complaints failed to satisfy the final standing requirement: that a favorable decision would offer redress for the injuries. (16)

  3. CONCLUSION

    Schum is not likely to have a large impact in future cases. It is a straightforward procedural...

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