FCC v. AT&T · ¶4

Held: Because forfeiture orders issued under § 503(b)(4) do not defnitively resolve the parties' legal obligations, and the FCC's factual findings in its forfeiture proceedings are not conclusive, it does not violate the Seventh Amendment for the Commission to issue forfeiture orders without the involvement of a jury. Pp. 540–548. (a) The FCC's forfeiture proceedings ft comfortably within the Court's Seventh Amendment precedents. The Seventh Amendment “preserve[s]” the right to trial by jury in “Suits at common law,” and applies in all proceedings in which “legal rights” are to be “settle[d],” Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 447. It does not, however, “prescribe at what stage” of a legal dispute “a trial by jury must, if demanded, be had.” Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 23. The Amendment requires only that, before legal rights and obligations are conclusively “ascertained and…

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