T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell

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T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell

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Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
13-975	11th Cir.	Nov 10, 2014 Tr.Aud.	Jan 14, 2015	6-3	Sotomayor	OT 2014

Holding: 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii), which provides that a locality’s denial of an application to build a cell phone tower “shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record,” requires localities to provide the reasons for such denials in writing. However, those reasons do not have to appear in the written denial letter as long as they appear in some other written record, are sufficiently clear, and are provided or made accessible to the applicant essentially contemporaneously with the written denial notice.

Judgment: Reversed and remanded, 6-3, in an opinion by Justice Sotomayor on January 14, 2015. Chief Justice Roberts filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg joined and in which Justice Thomas joined as to Part I. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion.

Opinion analysis: Reason-giving, federalism, and a partial win for cell towers (Miriam Seifter)
Argument analysis: A narrow dispute about reason-giving (Miriam Seifter)
Argument preview: Local governments and reason-giving (Miriam Seifter)
Petition of the day (Maureen Johnston)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Dec 13 2013	Application (13A614) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 30, 2013 to February 13, 2014, submitted to Justice Thomas.
Dec 20 2013	Application (13A614) granted by Justice Thomas extending the time to file until February 13, 2014.
Feb 12 2014	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 20, 2014)
Mar 19 2014	Brief of respondent City of Roswell, Georgia in opposition filed.
Mar 20 2014	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Competitive Carriers Association.
Mar 28 2014	Reply of petitioner T-Mobile South, LLC filed.
Apr 2 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 18, 2014.
Apr 21 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of April 25, 2014.
Apr 28 2014	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 2, 2014.
May 5 2014	Motion for leave to file amicus brief filed by Competitive Carriers Association GRANTED.
May 5 2014	Petition GRANTED.
Jun 3 2014	The time to file the joint appendix and petitioner's brief on the merits is extended to and including July 3, 2014.
Jun 3 2014	The time to file respondent's brief on the merits is extended to and including August 18, 2014.
Jul 1 2014	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs, in support of either party or of neither party, received from counsel for the petitioner.
Jul 3 2014	Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed.)
Jul 3 2014	Brief of petitioner T-Mobile South, LLC filed.
Jul 3 2014	Consent to the filing of amicus curiae briefs in support of either party or neither party received from counsel for the respondent.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of the United States in support of neither party filed.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of Competitive Carriers Association filed.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amici curiae of The Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America and National Federation of Independent Business filed.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of PCIA -The Wireless Infrastructure Association filed.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of CTIA - The Wireless Association filed.
Jul 10 2014	Brief amicus curiae of TowerCom V, LLC filed.
Aug 18 2014	Brief of respondent City of Roswell, Georgia filed.
Aug 25 2014	Brief amici curiae of National League of Cities, et al. filed.
Aug 25 2014	Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed.
Sep 4 2014	SET FOR ARGUMENT on Monday, November 10, 2014.
Sep 8 2014	Record requested from U.S.C.A. 11th Circuit.
Sep 8 2014	Record received from U.S.C.A. 11th Circuit is electronic and located on PACER.
Sep 9 2014	Record received form U.S.D.C. Northern District of Georgia is electronic and located on PACER.
Sep 17 2014	Reply of petitioner T-Mobile South, LLC filed. (Distributed)
Sep 19 2014	CIRCULATED
Oct 2 2014	Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument GRANTED.
Oct 8 2014	Supplemental brief of respondent City of Roswell, Georgia filed. (Distributed)
Nov 10 2014	Argued. For petitioner: Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, Ca. For United States, as amicus curiae: Ann O'Connell, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. For respondent: Richard A. Carothers, Buford, Ga.
Jan 14 2015	Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, Alito, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a concurring opinion. Roberts, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion in which Ginsburg, J., joined, and in which Thomas, J., joined as to Part I. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Feb 18 2015	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

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The Supreme Court released orders from the May 16 conference on Monday; the justices granted Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC.
On Monday, the justices released their opinions in Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, Herrera v. Wyoming and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht.
On Thursday, the justices met for their May 23 conference; John Elwood's Relist Watch compiles the petitions that were relisted for this conference.
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  (1) Whether the district court erred in enjoining the secretary of the Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker -- including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials -- without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
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  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
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  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
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  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
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Recent Decisions
- Herrera v. Wyoming Wyoming’s statehood did not abrogate the Crow Tribe’s 1868 federal treaty right to hunt on the “unoccupied lands of the United States”; the lands of the Bighorn National Forest did not become categorically “occupied” when the forest was created.
- Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht “Clear evidence” that the Food and Drug Administration would not have approved a change to a drug’s label – thus pre-empting a state-law failure-to-warn claim – is evidence showing that the drug manufacturer fully informed the FDA of the justifications for the warning required by state law and that the FDA, in turn, informed the drug manufacturer that the FDA would not approve a change to the drug’s label to include that warning; the question of agency disapproval is primarily one of law for a judge to decide.
- Mission Product Holdings Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC A bankruptcy debtor’s rejection of an executory contract under 11 U.S.C. §365 has the same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy; such an act thus cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.
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Current Relists
- al-Alwi v. Trump (1) Whether the government’s statutory authority to detain Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi has unraveled; (2) whether, alternatively, the government’s statutory authority to detain al-Alwi has expired because the conflict in which he was captured has ended; and (3) whether the Authorization for Use of Military Force authorizes, and the Constitution permits, detention of an individual who was not “engaged in an armed conflict against the United States” in Afghanistan prior to his capture.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. Whether a state, consistent with the 14th Amendment, may require an ultrasound as part of informed consent at least 18 hours before an abortion.
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Cases argued	70
Cases decided	32
Summary reversals	4
Merits cases granted to date	73

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