New Jersey prorating rules are allowed under the federal Cable Act, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday. No justices opposed the opinion by Justice Douglas Fasciale to reinstate the state Board of Public Utilities' cease-and-desist order against Altice for failing to prorate canceled bills.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed the Standard/Tegna broadcasters appeal of the FCC’s hearing designation order (HDO) but said it will expedite their petition for writ of mandamus, said an order late Monday. An appeal filed after a bureau decision but before “resolution by the full Commission” is “subject to dismissal as incurably premature,” said the brief order. The Standard/Tegna broadcasters had argued that the HDO was a final decision and that the mandamus petition to compel the FCC to act on the applications was a last resort. The FCC and the union and public interest group intervenors must file a response to the mandamus request by April 11, and the broadcasters must reply by April 14, the order said. The Standard/Tegna broadcasters have said their deal will irretrievably break up May 22.

T-Mobile appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a district court refused to stop California from switching to a connections-based method for state USF contribution. The carrier notified the U.S. District Court for Northern California about the appeal Monday.

A federal magistrate judge late Friday denied the motion of T-Mobile and its subsidiaries for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the California Public Utilities Commission's change to a $1.11 monthly per-line USF contribution fee from the previous revenue-based mechanism. The order came a short time before CPUC’s mechanism change took effect Saturday in the state.

NAB filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit calling on the court to treat the Standard/Tegna hearing designation order as a final action and calling the order a threat to the broadcast industry. “This Court should treat this order according to its intent and effect -- a de facto final denial of the license application -- and hear the appeal,” NAB said in the brief filed late Thursday. The trade group also filed a motion seeking permission to file the amicus brief. The FCC Media Bureau’s action “on gossamer evidence” injects “untenable unpredictability into license transfer applications,” the trade group said. NAB has historically held back from weighing in on specific deals, but CEO Curtis LeGeyt vocally condemned the HDO earlier this month.“We urge the court to correct this egregious misstep by the FCC," said LeGeyt in a release Thursday. "Unappointed FCC staff have sent this proposed deal to regulatory purgatory, depriving the Commissioners the opportunity to participate in decisions that carry significant implications for broadcast stations and their viewers and listeners." “Public interest review is not a mechanism for regulating licensee business contracts and employment practices,” the filing said. The Media Bureau’s “significant departure” from FCC precedent “means in practice that no party contemplating an investment in broadcast stations can, with any certainty, predict how the FCC will process its license transfer,” NAB said. “The broadcast industry cannot tolerate this kind of unpredictability.”

NAB will take the FCC to court unless it delays the 2022 quadrennial review and concludes the 2018 QR, said an ex parte filing Wednesday and broadcast industry officials in interviews, “The Commission has no lawful basis for withholding the belated 2018 review, and that failure independently threatens the viability of the 2022 review,” said the filing in docket 22-459. Multiple broadcast attorneys told us the trade group is resolved to pursue the matter in court, and without FCC action NAB will petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for a writ of mandamus. The filing gives the agency until April 12 to act to toll the 2022 QR proceeding and conclude the 2018 iteration. It’s not likely the FCC will agree to the request, attorneys told us. The agency didn't immediately comment.

The broadcasters involved in the Standard/Tegna deal filed a notice of appeal and a petition for mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging the FCC’s hearing designation order. The companies had said they would appeal to the courts if the commissioners didn’t vote on the deal by Monday. “The Hearing Order is a final denial warranting this Court’s review,” said the appeal notice, filed in docket 23-1083. “After nearly a year of slow-rolling the applications, the Media Bureau ordered a hearing on legally irrelevant topics with full awareness that it would spell the end for the applications.” As the broadcasters had cautioned the FCC, the appeal challenges the constitutionality of the FCC’s administrative law judge and argues the FCC’s decision was arbitrary, capricious and outside its jurisdiction. The writ of mandamus, which was filed separately in docket 23-1084, urges the court to compel the FCC to issue an order on the deal, but the broadcasters told the court the mandamus was filed “out of an abundance of caution” and appealing the HDO as a final order is “the proper vehicle. The broadcasters have said their deal will unravel if it isn’t consummated by May 22.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Consumers' Research's challenge of the FCC's method for funding the Universal Service Fund under the nondelegation doctrine, in a ruling Friday. The FCC "has not violated the private nondelegation doctrine because it wholly subordinates" the Universal Service Administrative Co., the court said, adding that Congress "supplied the FCC with intelligible principles when it tasked the agency with overseeing" USF. “We’ll let the unanimous decision speak for itself," emailed an FCC spokesperson. Consumers' Research declined to comment.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty for Western Louisiana in Monroe, in a 77-page decision Monday, mostly denied the government’s motion to dismiss the claims of the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, plus a host of private plaintiffs, that the Biden administration colluded with Big Tech to suppress right-leaning content on social media.

T-Mobile late Thursday took a hard line against the plaintiffs in the 16 class actions who sued the company over its Jan. 19 data breach disclosure and want the cases transferred for pre-trial consolidation under a single judge.