Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-975
Timestamp: 2018-01-21 14:46:03
Document Index: 335610677

Matched Legal Cases: ['§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§332', '§557', '§555', '§309', '§309', '§160', '§1515', '§944', '§5104']

T-MOBILE SOUTH, LLC v. CITY OF ROSWELL | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
T-MOBILE SOUTH, LLC v. CITY OF ROSWELL ( )
1. Section 332(c)(7)(B)(iii) requires localities to provide reasons when they deny applications to build cell phone towers. This conclusion follows from the Act’s provisions, which both preserve and specifically limit traditional state and local government authority. It would be considerably difficult for a reviewing court to determine whether a locality’s denial was “supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record,” §332(c)(7)(B)(iii), or whether a locality had “unreasonably discriminate[d] among providers of functionally equivalent services,” §332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I), or regulated siting “on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions,” §332(c)(7)(B)(iv), if localities were not obligated to state their reasons for denial. And nothing in the Act suggests that Congress meant to use the phrase “substantial evidence” as anything but an administrative law “term of art” that describes how “an administrative record is to be judged by a reviewing court.” United States v. Carlo Bianchi & Co., 373 U. S. 709. Pp. 6–8.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 provides, in relevant part, that “[a]ny decision by a State or local government or instrumentality thereof to deny a request to place, construct, or modify personal wireless service facilities shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.” 110Stat. 151, 47 U. S. C. §332(c)(7)(B)(iii). The question presented is whether, and in what form, localities must provide reasons when they deny telecommunication companies’ applications to construct cell phone towers. We hold that localities must provide or make available their reasons, but that those reasons need not appear in the written denial letter or notice provided by the locality. Instead, the locality’s reasons may appear in some other written record so long as the reasons are sufficiently clear and are provided or made accessible to the applicant essentially contemporaneously with the written denial letter or notice.
The detailed written minutes of the hearing, however, were not approved and published by the City until 26 days later, on May 10, 2010. See id., at 321–341 (meeting minutes). 1
The Eleventh Circuit reversed. 731 F. 3d 1213 (2013). It explained that, in T-Mobile South, LLC v. Milton, 728 F. 3d 1274 (2013), which was decided after the District Court’s decision in this case, it had held that “to the extent that the decision must contain grounds or reasons or explanations, it is sufficient if those are contained in a different written document or documents that the applicant is given or has access to.” Id., at 1285. The Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that the Courts of Appeals had split on that question, and that it had departed from the majority rule. Compare Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems, Inc. v. Todd, 244 F. 3d 51, 60 (CA1 2001) (requiring that a locality issue a written denial that itself contains a “sufficient explanation of the reasons for the permit denial to allow a reviewing court to evaluate the evidence in the record supporting those reasons”); New Par v. Saginaw, 301 F. 3d 390, 395–396 (CA6 2002); MetroPCS, Inc. v. City and County of San Francisco, 400 F. 3d 715, 723 (CA9 2005), with AT&T Wireless PCS, Inc. v. City Council of Virginia Beach, 155 F. 3d 423, 429 (CA4 1998) (holding that written minutes of a meeting and the word “denied” stamped on a letter describing the application weresufficient). Applying its rule to this case, the Eleventh Circuit found that the requirements of 47 U. S. C. §332(c)(7)(B)(iii) were satisfied because petitioner had its own transcript as well as a written letter stating that the application had been denied and informing petitioner that it could obtain access to the minutes of the hearing. 731 F. 3d, at 1221. It did not consider when the City provided its written reasons to petitioner.
Our conclusion follows from the provisions of the Telecommunications Act. The Act generally preserves “the traditional authority of state and local governments to regulate the location, construction, and modification” of wireless communications facilities like cell phone towers, but imposes “specific limitations” on that authority. Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 544 U. S. 113, 115 (2005) ; see §332(c)(7)(B). One of those limitations is that any decision to deny a request to build a tower “shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.” §332(c)(7)(B)(iii). Another is that parties adversely affected by a locality’s decision may seek judicial review. §332(c)(7)(B)(v). In order to determine whether a locality’s denial was supported by substantial evidence, as Congress directed, courts must be able to identify the reason or reasons why the locality denied the application. See Rancho Palos Verdes, 544 U. S., at 128 (Breyer, J., joined by O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., concurring) (observing that the Act “requires local zoning boards . . . [to] give reasons for [their] denials ‘in writing’ ”).
The requirement that localities must provide reasons when they deny applications is further underscored by two of the other limitations on local authority set out in the Act. The Act provides that localities “shall not unreason-ably discriminate among providers of functionally equivalent services,” and may not regulate the construction of personal wireless service facilities “on the basis of the environmental effects of radio frequency emissions to the extent that such facilities comply with the [Federal Communications Commission’s] regulations concerning such emissions.” §§332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I), (iv). 2 Again, it would be considerably more difficult for a reviewing court to determine whether a locality had violated these substantive provisions if the locality were not obligated to state its reasons.
This conclusion is not just commonsensical, but flows directly from Congress’ use of the term “substantial evidence.” The statutory phrase “substantial evidence” is a “term of art” in administrative law that describes how “an administrative record is to be judged by a reviewing court.” United States v. Carlo Bianchi & Co., 373 U. S. 709, 715 (1963) . There is no reason discernible from the text of the Act to think that Congress meant to use the phrase in a different way. See FAA v. Cooper, 566 U. S. ___, ___ (2012) (slip op., at 6) (“[W]hen Congress employs a term of art, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Indeed, for those who consider legislative history relevant, the Conference Report accompanying the Act confirmed as much when it noted that “[t]he phrase ‘substantial evidence contained in a written record’ is the traditional standard used for review of agency actions.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104–458, p. 208 (1996).
By employing the term “substantial evidence,” Congress thus invoked, among other things, our recognition that “the orderly functioning of the process of [substantial-evidence] review requires that the grounds upon which the administrative agency acted be clearly disclosed,” and that “courts cannot exercise their duty of [substantial-evidence] review unless they are advised of the considerations underlying the action under review.” SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 94 (1943) ; see also Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 43 (1983) (explaining that an agency must “articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action” to enable substantial-evidence review); Beaumont, S. L. & W. R. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 74, 86 (1930) (“Complete statements by the [agency] showing the grounds upon which its determinations rest are quite as necessary as are opinions of lower courts setting forth the reasons on which they base their decisions . . .”).
We hasten to add that a locality cannot stymie or burden the judicial review contemplated by the statute by delaying the release of its reasons for a substantial time after it conveys its written denial. The statute provides that an entity adversely affected by a locality’s decision may seek judicial review within 30 days of the decision. §332(c)(7)(B)(v). Because an entity may not be able to make a considered decision whether to seek judicial review without knowing the reasons for the denial of its application, and because a court cannot review the denial without knowing the locality’s reasons, the locality must provide or make available its written reasons at essentially the same time as it communicates its denial. 3
This rule ought not to unduly burden localities given the range of ways in which localities can provide their reasons. Moreover, the denial itself needs only to be issued (or the application otherwise acted upon) “within a reasonable period of time.” §332(c)(7)(B)(ii). In an interpretation we have recently upheld, see Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. ___ (2013), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has generally interpreted this provision to allow localities 90 days to act on applications to place new antennas on existing towers and 150 days to act on other siting applications. In re Petition for Declaratory Ruling to Clarify Provisions of Section 332(c)(7)(b), 24 FCC Rcd. 13994, 13995, ¶4 (2009). If a locality is not in a position to provide its reasons promptly, the locality can delay the issuance of its denial within this 90- or 150-day window, and instead release it along with its reasons once those reasons are ready to be provided. Only once the denial is issued would the 30-day commencement-of-suit clock begin. 4
First, petitioner argues that the word “decision” in the statute—the thing that must be “in writing”—connotes a written document that itself provides all the reasons for a given judgment. See Brief for Petitioner 24 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 407 (6th ed. 1990) (a “decision” is a written document providing “ ‘the reasons given for [a] judgment’ ”)). But even petitioner concedes, with its preferred dictionary in hand, that the word “decision” can also mean “something short of a statement of reasons explaining a determination.” Brief for Petitioner 24 (citing Black’s Law Dictionary, at 407). 5
Second, petitioner claims that other provisions in the Act use the word “notify” when the Act means to impose only a requirement that a judgment be communicated. 6 Because the provision at issue here does not use the word “notify,” petitioner argues, it must contemplate something more than a judgment. This does not logically follow. For one thing, the statute at issue here does not use any verb at all to describe the conveying of information from a locality to an applicant; it just says that a denial “shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.” §332(c)(7)(B)(iii). But more to the point, “notify” is a verb the use—or nonuse—of which does not reveal what the thing to be notified of or about is.
Thus, we hold that the Act requires localities to provide reasons when they deny cell phone tower siting applications, but that the Act does not require localities to provide those reasons in written denial letters or notices themselves. A locality may satisfy its statutory obligations if it states its reasons with sufficient clarity in some other written record issued essentially contemporaneously with the denial. In this case, the City provided its reasons in writing and did so in the acceptable form of detailed minutes of the City Council meeting. The City, however, did not provide its written reasons essentially contemporaneously with its written denial. Instead, the City issued those detailed minutes 26 days after the date of the written denial and just 4 days before petitioner’s time to seek judicial review would have expired. 7 The City therefore did not comply with its statutory obligations. We do not consider questions regarding the applicability of principles of harmless error or questions of remedy, and leave those for the Eleventh Circuit to address on remand.
3 The Chief Justice’s dissent rejects this particular requirement, and instead invents a process that turns judicial review on its head. Rather than give effect to a process that would permit an entity seeking to challenge a locality’s decision to see the locality’s written reasons before it files its suit—and the dissent agrees that the statute requires that a locality convey its reasons in writing, see post, at 5—the dissent would fashion a world in which a locality can wait until a lawsuit is commenced and a court orders it to state its reasons. The entity would thus be left to guess at what the locality’s written reasons will be, write a complaint that contains those hypotheses, and risk being sandbagged by the written reasons that the locality subsequently provides in litigation after the challenging entity has shown its cards. The reviewing court would then need to ensure that those reasons are not post hoc rationalizations, see Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 168 (1962) , but the dissent offers no guidance as to how a reviewing court that has never seen near-contemporaneous reasons would conduct that inquiry.
4 The City urges us to hold that the clock does not begin to run until after the reasons are given. We cannot so hold, however, without rewriting the statutory text. The Act provides that a lawsuit may be filed by “[a]ny person adversely affected by any final action or failure to act . . . within 30 days after such action or failure to act.” 47 U. S. C. §332(c)(7)(B)(v). The relevant “final action” is the issuance of the written notice of denial, not the subsequent issuance of reasons explaining the denial. See Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154–178 (1997) (agency action is “final” if it “mark[s] the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process” and determines “rights or obligations” or triggers “legal consequences” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
First, a court must “uphold a decision of less than ideal clarity if the agency’s path may reasonably be discerned.” Bowman Transp., Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U. S. 281, 286 (1974) . In the context of 47 U. S. C. §332(c)(7), which leaves in place almost the entirety of a local government’s authority, a succinct statement that a permit has been denied because the tower would be esthetically incompatible with the surrounding area should suffice. Nothing in this statute imposes an opinion-writing requirement.
Second, even if a locality has erred, a court must not invalidate the locality’s decision if the error was harmless. “In administrative law, as in federal civil and criminal litigation, there is a harmless error rule.” National Assn. of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife, 551 U. S. 644–660 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, for instance, I have trouble believing that T-Mobile South, LLC—which actively participated in the decisionmaking process, including going so far as to transcribe the public hearing—was prejudiced by the city of Roswell’s delay in providing a copy of the minutes.
Third, the ordinary rule in administrative law is that a court must remand errors to the agency “except in rare circumstances.” Florida Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U. S. 729, 744 (1985) . Nothing we say today should be read to suggest that when a locality has erred, the inevitable remedy is that a tower must be built. The Court has not passed on what remedial powers a “court of competent jurisdiction” may exercise. §332(c)(7)(B)(v). This unanswered question is important given the federalism implications of this statute.
The statute at issue in this case provides that “[a]ny decision . . . to deny a request . . . shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record.” 47 U. S. C. §332(c)(7)(B)(iii). The Court concludes that the City loses this case not because it failed to provide its denial in writing. It did provide its denial in writing. Nor does the City lose because the denial was not supported by substantial evidence in a written record. The City compiled a written record; whether that record contained substantial evidence supporting the denial is not at issue here and has not been decided. Nor does the City lose because its denial was not accompanied by a statement of reasons apart from the written record. A sharp conflict had developed in the lower courts over the necessity of such a separate statement, and the Court today squarely holds that one is not required. Ante, at 5, 8–11. No, the City instead loses because of a question of timing: The written record was not made available roughly the same day as the denial—a requirement found nowhere in the text of the statute.
A comparison between Section 332(c)(7)(B)(iii) and other statutory provisions that were on the books in 1996 also suggests that when Congress wants decisionmakers to supply explanations, it says so. Consider first the Administrative Procedure Act. In the context of formal adjudication and rulemaking, it demands that “decisions . . . include a statement of . . . findings and conclusions, and the reasons or basis therefor, on all the material issues.” 5 U. S. C. §557(c)(A) (1994 ed.) (emphasis added). Even in informal proceedings, an agency must give prompt notice of the denial of a written application, and, “[e]xcept in affirming a prior denial or when the denial is self-explanatory, the notice shall be accompanied by a brief statement of the grounds for denial.” §555(e) (emphasis added).
The Communications Act of 1934, which the Telecommunications Act overhauled, itself contains a similar express requirement. Section 309 allows an interested party to petition the Federal Communications Commission to deny a license application. 47 U. S. C. §309(d)(1) (1994 ed.). If the FCC decides to grant an application despite such a petition, it must “issue a concise statement of the reasons for denying the petition.” §309(d)(2). And a provision added along with Section 332(c)(7) in the Telecommunications Act provides that when the FCC grants or denies a petition for regulatory forbearance, it “shall explain its decision in writing.” §160(c) (2000 ed.) (emphasis added). Many other statutes in effect in 1996 could be added to the list. See, e.g., 19 U. S. C. §1515(a) (1994 ed.) (notice of customs protest denial “shall include a statement of the reasons for the denial”); 30 U. S. C. §944 (1994 ed.) (individual whose claim for black lung benefits “is denied shall receive . . . a written statement of the reasons for denial”); 38 U. S. C. §5104(b) (1994 ed.) (notice of denial of veterans benefits must include “a statement of the reasons for the decision”).
continuousfirstrId9
I join Part I of The Chief Justice’s dissent, which says all the Court needed to say to resolve this case. I write separately to express my concern about the Court’s eagerness to reach beyond the bounds of the present dispute to create a timing requirement that finds no support in the text or structure of the statute. We have been unwilling to impose procedural requirements on federal agencies in the absence of statutory command, even while recognizing that an agency’s failure to make its decisions known at the time it acts may burden regulated parties. See, e.g., Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633–655 (1990). When a State vests its municipalities with authority to exercise a core state power, those municipalities deserve at least as much respect as a fed-eral agency. But today, the majority treats them as less than conscripts in “the national bureaucratic army,” FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 775 (1982) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). I respectfully dissent.