By Alexia Sparling, an insider at Lease Advisors
Last Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling in the T-Mobile South, LLC v. Roswell, Georgia case has been celebrated as a small win for wireless carriers. T-Mobile South argued that the city of Roswell did not comply with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which requires local governments to provide a written record with support and substantial evidence when denying requests for cellular sites. T-Mobile South, owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, said that Roswell fell short of these requirements in 2010 when a brief letter was sent to the company denying a request to erect an 11-story cell tower in a residential neighborhood. Instead of detailing reasons and providing evidence to support its denial, the letter referred the company to city council minutes where the councilmember’s rationale was left to their own interpretation.
Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan came to a ruling with a 6-3 vote. The Court’s opinion, authored by Justice Sotomayor, rejected T-Mobile’s argument that the city should have explicitly provided a written decision including the specific reasons for rejecting the tower. The opinion did find fault in the city of Roswell for their delayed provision of the council minutes. T-Mobile General Council Dave Miller called the ruling a “great victory” when the court established that such materials must me provided “at essentially the same time,” allowing carriers adequate time to review the decision and decide if they will challenge it in court before the 30-day deadline. Miller added that “Transparent and fair decision-making by local governments will allow wireless service providers to improve the nation’s wireless networks to meet consumers demand.”
The Court believes that its decision will have minimal impact on localities. According to David Davidson, the Roswell city attorney, “it won’t be hard to comply going forward. We just won’t send them the decision until we have the minutes ready for the meeting.”
The Justices were divided over the details of the suit, yet all seemed to agree that the T-Mobile South decision will have a limited impact on relations between local governments and wireless carriers regarding cell tower law. The case was significant in that it illustrated the Court’s developing efforts to bridge administrative law and federal law.
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