© 1994 - 2009
Against the Grain

PRELUDE TO PHONE CASE

This case started in July of 1998 when I, Albert Coombs, researched the "Gore Taxes." They were instituted on all people's phone bills before July of 1998. I was incensed when I started discovering numerous unidentified doubtful charges appearing on my recent phone bills. That is what started me on a crusade to see what I could find out about all these charges that the phone company said were federally mandated. I spent 6 months with Sprint, my local carrier in letter writing to no avail.

AT&T got into the picture because I was withholding from payment, all charges that I found unconstitutional, repealed, or flat out not instituted by Congress, namely the Gore taxes.

While searching the Gore taxes, one thing led to another. I ran across some startling finds. One of which was the federal excise tax. I found that the regulations declared that in July of 1965 they were repealed. That regulation no longer exists. I then looked to the Statute created by Congress and sure enough it also said the federal excise tax was repealed in 1968. I then looked for the federal Form with the OMB number that did at one time exist. This was to be filed by everyone paying the federal excise tax. It also was eliminated. I proceeded to obtain the statutes at large from 1898 that created the federal excise tax on phones. I found that only the people owning and operating phone lines were required to pay this tax and not the consuming public. In fact in the statutes at large not one mention that the tax could be passed on to the consumer. What all the hoopla has been about since I filed the brief by certain Congress critters is this. They called and introduced many bills calling for a repeal of the excise tax. Why now all of a sudden? Because you people never knew it was repealed in 1965. If Congress did repeal it on say June of 2001 no one would be the wiser and no one could collect the taxes paid back to 1965. Are they protecting you? NO. Are they protecting a billion-dollar industry that gives them slush fund money? YES

I then researched North Carolina's state sales tax. Lo and behold there is almost the identical wording as the 1898 federal excise tax. So I went further and found that the North Carolina legislature did not properly enact this statute. They violated the North Carolina Constitution when only "adopting" and not "enacting" the law which the Constitution stated had to be exact in the wording. This lead me to the other charges like the 911 and the hearing-impaired charge called NC Relay. They too were only directory and applied to a member of the corporation called the county body politic. In other words if you did not register to vote and claimed you were not a member of that incorporated town you were not required to pay either of these charges. This is the law now and the words employed in the statute. It is not the old saying that "the law says you have to pay." It is what the law itself says, not the politician or bureaucrat.

So after talking to AT&T and Sprint top people on the phone and letter writing I decided I had researched for 1000 hours plus that I had enough solid documentation to file a complaint with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) of North Carolina against Sprint over all these charges. The date was December 30, 1998.

The PUC, through an internal memo to their counsel, stated that if they had jurisdiction over the matter that they would have to add AT&T to the complaint. The very next day the counsel agreed and AT&T was added and the complaint filed by the PUC against the phone companies. So now I had admission that the PUC declared it had total jurisdiction. I contacted the United States General Accounting Office and asked for them to send directly to the PUC the findings that the FCC violated the corporation control act and the Gore taxes were "non-constitutional." They did on my behalf and now the PUC had a hot potato. You see I had asked, among other things, to return all federal excise taxes to the people all the way back to 1965. I talked to two GAO attorneys on the matter. Three months after I filed my complaint I got a call from a GAO attorney. The conversation was very informative. The GAO attorney stated to me that they had no idea a complaint was filed until I called them. He stated that it caused them to look closer on the matter. He stated that one month after I filed my complaint, the FCC disbanded to two private corporations it created in Delaware to collect the Gore taxes. Then they moved them to another corporation to cover what they had done so no one could follow the trail. The attorney said yes to my question when I asked if that corp. was unconstitutional also. After eight months of briefs back and forth between me and the phone companies, through the PUC, a man named Paul Burge came on board as an intervener. Anyone that had the same charges could become involved.

Mr. Burge, a paralegal, was the only one besides me, that pursued the matter; even though I had plastered on the e mails and internet that please, anyone wishing to join come on. Well, after a long delay the PUC up and denied Mr. Burge intervener status because of the lame excuse that he had no interest in the outcome of this matter. That's right he was paying the same illegal charges that I was asked to pay and the PUC "declared" he had no interest in this matter? Mr. Burge, having legal background "appealed" the PUC's absurd order and persisted by joining me on all briefs and documentation filed to the North Carolina Supreme Court and ultimately to the Supreme Court of the United States. To this very day; Mr. Burge has never received an answer from his timely and properly filed Appeal at the PUC level; even though he and I were called upon to speak on this lawsuit before the Public Utilities Commission oversight panel of the North Carolina General Assembly subsequent to his alleged denial of intervener status.

Then in August of 1999 the PUC called for a full-blown public hearing on the complaint. Well. The law stated that NOW I could file for discovery after the Hearing was set, which I did. Now are you ready for this? The PUC took the discovery, looked at it, and immediately called off the previously scheduled hearing and then also decided to dismiss the complaint saying it had no jurisdiction. All this happened only after they read the questions that Sprint and AT&T would have to respond to under an oath! This is exactly the opposite and in direct contradiction of the PUC's own actions, as they, not Mr. Burge and myself, found jurisdiction to add AT&T to my Complaint in 1998. Our Discovery asked the phone companies to produce the actual statutes at large created by Congress that authorized them to collect all these taxes under the constitution. This question and many similar discovery questions we proffered to the phone companies; undoubted it put the fear of "incrimination" in the phone company legal staff. The PUC already knew the score and could already see the writing on the wall as this case was unfolding; so they used the only avenue to STOP US DEAD IN OUR TRACKS. They immediately reversed their own prior Order for a Public Hearing and proceeded to quickly BURY this entire matter without allowing further evidence to unfold that would surely implicate the phone companies in illegal activities. Mr. Burge and I found out that the PUC was actually our adversary all along. The PUC, when it comes to something this monumental will side with the Big companies, not the people it is too supposedly created to protect from price gouging. The bottom line is that we are paying the operating costs of the phone companies as well as charged for the basic phone service. Sweet little deals they have going. In fact so sweet it reeks of RICO, extortion and FRAUD, not to mention it fits the definition of fascism to a T.

As a side note I contacted the Attorney General of NC, Mike Easley, who is now Governor, to intervene on behalf of the people of North Carolina to investigate the illegal charges. The Attorney General previously had been sent the paperwork. The reason being, the law requires that when a case this big come to the PUC they are required by public policy to bring it to the attention of the Attorney General. Well the DAG wrote me and actually called me and stated the case was rather interesting but they did not have the man power to pursue the action. Well how about that, he would not protect the people of North Carolina from Billions of dollars fraudulently extorted from the NC subscribers. Doesn't that beat all. Hum..mm , I guess they need to preserve their manpower so they can go after all those criminal traffic offenders who don't wear seatbelts.

Anyway, after totally researching the Laws and procedures of NC, we found that we could file a direct appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court under the "rate case" statute. This had never been done in the history of North Carolina by consumers. It took three months of talking on the phone, letters and actually going to the Supreme Court to sit down and talking with them, to make them realize we could do what we said the law said we could. Imagine that, a researcher and a paralegal explaining to the Supreme Court personnel what the statutes actually says? Yes people they are that ignorant. And you think you get a fair deal in these courts? Stay tuned, because is about to get better, or worse really.

The Supreme Court finally accepted the paperwork with both our names as appellants because Mr. Burge was appealing his denial to intervene. The appeal was filed and we waited for the response from the phone companies. 30 days came and went. Nothing. We filed a nihil dicit judgement of default against the phone companies for never having filed an appearance paper or response. We went to a NC Rep. He made a few calls and wrote a few letters. Well all of a sudden we get a letter saying Mr. Burge was dismissed and the case had been closed. WHAT, I said? When did this happen? The clerk said two weeks ago did you not get the Order? I said no we did not receive anything. Well the next day the Order of the court was mailed to me. The judges stated the case was dismissed ex mero muto without further comment. I mean, come on, even a first year law student knows it's an automatic default when one party fails to respond to a formal action. So we filed for a rehearing, demanding a reason as dictated by the Rules of NC, for the Courts. The response was-- we, "the" court, do not have to follow the law that applies to every other court in NC, case dismissed again, with no reason. Now is something starting to smell really rotten in Denmark? I tried finding the Justices disclosure if they had stock in the phone companies and after 12 different people in seven different agencies, including the agency that votes the justices into office by popular vote, I ran into the brick wall. No one would disclose that info even under FOIA. Oh a side note. The Rep that helped us never got the phone company donation that he previously received while in office for all prior years. See, the big companies know the pocket book speaks louder than law and is more powerful than any other law Congress or the legislature of any State writes.

So we filed to the US Supreme Court. The docket number was 00-1605 and was posted on their web page. One Justice found merit in our case and that is why it went to a full certiorari conference. Well in the process we found out another hot item. The FCC is a private treaty created organization under the various acts of the1930's when the international communications act was instituted. They are passed off as a government agency. Boy have we been had. Since the FCC created these illegal Gore taxes the only way to make them legal under the Treaty was for Congress to enact the laws that FCC created and Congress never did. You, my dear people are taxed, NOT by Congress but a mere private agency in contradiction to their own Constitution. This was all put to the US Supreme Court. All the other actions in the country by all these high-priced lawyers never turned up what we found. The end result? The four year law grads aiding the Supreme Court Justices denied cert. Not any of the justices mind you, but only the clerk. I filed a response demanding the name of the justice that said the case had merit and filed a denial of the decision directly to the Chief Justice in January of 2001. To date there has been no response and I don't expect one.

Since 1998 the illegal charges I withheld amounted to 669.24. Just think I am small peanuts compared to businesses and large users and multiply the millions of phone users times my bill and you have billions of dollars. Do you know that a person not having any long distance calls is paying 37 percent of his bill in these illegal charges every month? And people complain about a 5 or 10-cent gas hike which amounts to 1.07 percent, when the gas goes from 1.40 to 1.55 a gallon and yet not complain of a 37 percent gouge from the phone companies?

I am now including the full brief entered before the NC Supreme Court, the default, and the rehearing, to show you why the phone companies would not dare file a response and why the Court is protecting them. After all the Bar buddies have to stick it to the people as they cover each others backs. Don't they always put the little man on the bottom? Recently the phone company Sprint threatened to shut off my phone so I have to pay the extortion under TDC, and fraud. There has never been a legal determination in our case on the merits. The courts just flatly refused to hear the case and never stated the complaint was frivolous or in any other way, unwarranted. The PUC only stated that it had no jurisdiction while it's own prior "joinder Order" indicated that it DID have such jurisdiction.

Oh....what a tangled web They weave?