A district court does not have jurisdiction under...

brief filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Mark Mais filed suit against Gulf Coast Collection Bureau. Mais charged the debt collection company “violated the TCPA by using a predictive dialer to make between 15 and 30 calls to his cellular telephone number, and left four messages, in an effort to collect a debt Mais had incurred for medical services,” the FCC said (http://fcc.us/1bsBppH). “Mais’s wife had provided the cellular telephone number on his behalf at the time the medical services were rendered.” Gulf Coast sought summary judgment, citing a 2008 FCC ruling that since the calls had been made with express consent by Mais, via his wife, Gulf Coast could not be held liable for violating the TCPA. The district court let the case proceed, “holding it was not bound by the 2008 FCC decision” and “the Hobbs Act did not divest it of jurisdiction because ’the Plaintiff does not seek to collaterally attack an FCC order in any respect,'” the FCC said. The agency disagreed. “Section 402(a) of the Communications Act ... specifies that (with certain exceptions not applicable here) any challenge to a final order of the FCC must be brought under the Hobbs Act,” the FCC said. “The Hobbs Act, in turn, gives the courts of appeals ‘exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in part), or to determine the validity of’ such action.” Upholding the lower court’s decision would have many negative implications, the FCC said. “If the district court’s decision is left to stand, the validity of FCC orders and rules could be called into question in a host of collateral challenges in which the FCC is not a party and as to which its lawyers have no notice,” the agency said. “That result raises the specter of conflicting opinions from different courts as to whether a particular FCC order or rule is, or is not, valid. ... There would be little point to consolidating challenges to agency orders in a single court of appeals if the validity of the agency’s order also could be challenged during the course of private litigation in courts across the country."