The Cases database contains the full text of broadcast-related orders released by the FCC (both by the full Commission and by its Bureaus) as well as broadcast-related decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeal. Selected cases from U.S. District Courts and state supreme courts are also included. Cases are selected for inclusion after careful review by Pike & Fischer's attorney-editors. The material in Cases dates from 1964 to the present and is updated daily.
Use this field to narrow your search to cases with particular words or party names in the case title. You do not need to use any special punctuation or commands to search for a phrase. Simply enter the phrase the way it ordinarily appears. If a phrase contains a noise word, your search will skip over that word when searching for it. Use connector, wildcard and stemming tools to fine-tune your results.
| Examples: | Bell Telephone Company | |
| satellite or radio | ||
| regulatory fees | ||
| wireless and auction |
Use this field to narrow your search to cases including a word or phrase within any part of the document, including case title, text, footnotes or appendices. You do not need to use any special punctuation or commands to search for a phrase. Simply enter the phrase the way it ordinarily appears. If a phrase contains a noise word, your search will skip over that word when searching for it. Use connector, wildcard and stemming tools to fine-tune your results.
| Examples: | directional antenna | |
| internet | ||
| radiofrequency or RF | ||
| interference and coordination |
back to topUse this field when you know the official FCC document number of the case, e.g., FCC 99-306, DA 03-107. The document number is a unique identifier assigned to each order that is issued by the FCC. It is located at the top of the order itself.
Document numbers with the prefix FCC indicate that the order was issued by the full Commission. Document numbers with the prefix DA (Delegated Authority) indicate that the order was issued by one of the agency's Bureaus or Offices. The two numbers before the hyphen indicate the year the order was adopted.
It is suggested that you include the FCC or DA prefix in your search. Otherwise, your search results might include two orders: one with the FCC prefix and one with the DA prefix.
| Examples: | FCC 99-306 | |
| DA 03-107 |
Use this field if you know the FCC, West or Pike & Fischer citation for the case you are looking for.
| Examples of FCC citations: | 18 FCC Rcd 16978 | |
| 88 FCC 2d 934 | ||
| Examples of West citations: | 290 F3d 415 | |
| 106 S Ct 1890 | ||
| 476 US 355 | ||
| Examples of P&F citations: | 26 CR 1417 | |
| 77 RR2d 32 | ||
Use this field to restrict your search to cases with a certain FCC docket number assigned to them, e.g., CC Docket No. 96-98, WT Docket No. 03-264. The two-letter prefix in the docket number indicates the FCC Bureau in charge of the proceeding. It is not necessary to include that prefix in your search.
| Examples: | 96-98 | |
| 03-264 |
This field allows you to search for a case by its date or to restrict your search results to a certain date range. Most FCC orders have both an "Adopted" date and a "Released" date listed under their caption. This field searches the "Released" date.
Your search may consists of a group of words or phrases linked by connectors such as and and or that indicate the relationship between them.
| Examples: | apple and pear | « Both words must be present | |
| apple or pear | « Either word can be present | ||
| apple w/5 pear | « Apple must occur within 5 words of pear | ||
| apple not w/5 pear | « Apple must not occur within 5 words of pear | ||
| apple and not pear | « Only apple must be present |
If you use more than one connector, you should use parentheses to indicate precisely what you want to search for. For example, apple and pear or orange juice could mean (apple and pear) or orange, or it could mean apple and (pear or orange).
Noise words, such as if and the, are ignored in searches. » More about connectors
A search word can contain the wildcard characters * and ?. A ? in a word matches any single character, and a * matches any number of characters. The wildcard characters can be in any position in a word.
| Examples: | appl* | « would match apple, application, etc. | |
| *cipl* | « would match principle, participle, etc. | ||
| appl? | « would match apply and apple but not apples. /td> | ||
| apple not w/5 pear | « Apple must not occur within 5 words of pear | ||
| ap*ed | « would match applied, approved, etc |
Note that use of the * wildcard character near the beginning of a word may slow search performance.
You may use the ~ character to extend or stem your search to cover grammatical variations on a word.
| Examples: | test~ | « would also find testing | |
| apply~ | « would also find applying, applies, and apply |
» More search tips