One of yesterday morning's Supreme Court rulings may eventually lead to better cellphone service. (We're trying to picture Clarence Thomas saying, "Can you hear me now?" Or, you know, saying anything at all.) The opinion in T-Mobile South LLC v. City of Roswell favors T-Mobile, requiring local governments to provide written reasoning for rejecting requests to build new cell towers. The decision is "a win for wireless carriers and the deployment of wireless infrastructure," says Morrison & Foerster Supreme Court practice co-chair Joe Palmore, a former Assistant to the US Solicitor General. A past Ginsburg clerk, Joe has argued 10 cases before the Supreme Court and previously served as FCC deputy GC.
We spoke with Joe, and he says the need for written reasoning makes it easier for denials to be reviewed in lower courts. The possibility of judicial review is an important check against unreasonable zoning denials, which may be hampered without stated reasons. There's some flexibility in how the local government satisfied this requirement; the explanation doesn't have to be within the letter of denial, but released at "essentially the same time." In the long run, Joe says, the public benefits from the deployment of this infrastructure--it means fewer dropped calls and better service.
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