If the title of this post means something to you, then you might find of interest the Fourth Circuit’s opinion today in New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLC v. Finley. Judge Davis wrote the opinion for the Court, which was joined in by Judge Agee and Judge Keenan.
Posts Tagged ‘Telecommunications Act of 1996’
NCUC approval of ICAs affirmed by Fourth Circuit in appeal brought by CMRS providers from judgment in favor of RLECs
Posted in Fourth Circuit, Law, tagged Agee, AT&T Mobility, CMRS, Davis, interconnection agreement, Keenan, New Cingular Wireless, POI, RLEC, Telecommunications Act of 1996 on March 15, 2012|
Two published Fourth Circuit opinions by Judge Wynn on admissibility of expert testimony in medical malpractice case under Virginia law and statutory standing under the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Posted in Fourth Circuit, Law, tagged evidence, expert testimony, Floyd, Keith, medical malpractice, Shedd, standing, statutory standing, Telecommunications Act of 1996, Wilkinson, Wynn on December 8, 2011|
The Fourth Circuit issued two published opinions in argued cases today. Judge Wynn authored both opinions, which were unanimous.
At issue in Creekmore v. Maryview Hospital was the admissibility, under Virginia Code § 8.01-581.20, of the testimony of an OB-GYN about the standard of care for a nurse’s postpartum monitoring of a high-risk patient with preeclampsia. The district court admitted the testimony and the court of appeals affirmed. The panel deciding the appeal consisted of Judge Wilkinson, Judge Wynn, and Judge Floyd.
In CGM, LLC v. BellSouth Telecommunications, the Court of Appeals held that a billing agent for competitive LECs lacked statutory standing to bring an action for declaratory relief against an incumbent LEC regarding the claim that the ILEC failed to pass on to CLECs the full value of discounts offered by the ILEC to its customers. No CLECs were parties in the case. Some key language:
CGM has no interconnection agreement with BellSouth. CGM has not brought this suit pursuant to any interconnection agreement. And no party to an interconnection agreement is a plaintiff in CGM’s suit. Because Section 251(c)’s resale duties and the related 47 C.F.R. § 51.613 are not free-standing but exist, to the extent that they do at all (given parties’ freedom to contract around them), only as embodied in interconnection agreements, CGM has no rights, and BellSouth no duties, under the circumstances of this case.
Although decided on statutory standing grounds, this case has some echoes of the Fourth Circuit’s decision on Article III standing in Neese v. Johanns:
In this case, any claim to a specific sum of money must flow from the contractual relationship between the Secretary and the producer. See 7 U.S.C. § 518b(a) (“The Secretary shall offer to enter into a contract . . . under which the producer of quota tobacco shall be entitled to receive payments under this section. . . .”) (emphasis added). Appellants, however, cannot maintain such a claim. After accepting the Secretary’s offer of payment contracts without reservation and entering into those contracts, they transferred all their rights under those contracts to third parties. Quite simply, appellants have no rights left to invoke and, therefore, lack standing to pursue further contracts or payments from the Secretary.
Procedure buffs may be interested in noting the court’s conclusion that a motion to dismiss for lack of statutory standing is properly brought under FRCP 12(b)(6) rather than FRCP 12(b)(1). It is also worth noting how easily the court dispatched the attempt to rely on the Declaratory Judgment Act as a free-standing cause of action.
The panel deciding CGM consisted of Judge Shedd, Judge Wynn, and Senior Sixth Circuit Judge Keith.
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