A bit more than a month ago, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in T-Mobile South, LLC v City of Roswell. The rule of law is accredited doubly: when denying cell phone towers, localities must provide “reasons” for the the tower was denied, reasons which are “simply clear enough to enable judicial review”; and that these reasons must be given essentially contemporaneously with the denial.
The questions engendering those answers came about when the City of Roswell denied T-Mobile’s application (which was papered over properly) by way of a 4 sentence letter after a 2 hour public hearing on the tower and deferred their reasoning to the minutes the Clerk would propagate. 26 days later, T-Mobile received the reasoning. 3 days later, T-Mobile filed suit in federal court for the District of Northern Georgia, and 5 years later, T-Mobile prevailed. That timeline is important, because the City of Roswell wasted 86% of the time allotted to T-Mobile to author their suit in appeal.
Right, so surely the City of Roswell is just better at this legal game than T-Mobile? Not so fast. 30 days to appeal a decision is taken from the courts system – which issues an opinion contemporaneously with all decisions. Whether the City of Roswell was attempting to game the system to de facto deny T-Mobile the ability to appeal the City’s denial is overshadowed by the description of the City’s reason for the delay: “the City primarily argues that a reason giving obligation would deprive it of local zoning authority.”
LOL. Zoning still requires decisions to be made based on articulable and defendable reasoning, y’all. LOL When the law’s not on your side, and the facts aren’t on your side, pound on the table. This is a joke among lawyers, because it humorously describes what the side who went to trial on emotion alone usually does: yell loudly about injustice and otherwise entertain opposing counsel.
As with any Supreme Court opinion, analysis begins foremost with the lens thru which you view the opinion. Huffington Post and CNN will read the same words for a different purpose than I do or Professor Oedel does. HuffPo and CNN want to find the drama in the case and convince you it’s a story you cannot not read. Professor Oedel wants to know how the rule of law has been advanced (after all, he teaches Constitutional Law). Me, I like trying to figure out the non-law reasons the parties went all the way to the Supreme Court.
Rather, lawyers really care about these archaic and exceedingly complicated questions of law. But clients, by and large, are focused more on the application of laws, the facts which give rise to legal duties, the facts which cause the lawyer to say “Ah, I find it necessary to inform you that ….”
Ah, I find it necessary to inform you that Chief Justice Roberts would side with the City of Roswell and dissents that the localities needn’t provide their reason until a court orders the production of those reasons.
Which would put forth an absurd policy. A 2012 study of corruption in government determined that 44% of corruption was in local government. Virginia’s Executive was recently sent to prison. Oregon’s Executive is under federal probe. Georgia’s Deal is consistently on the cusp of ethics violations. New Orleans’ Executive was sacked for how he handled Katrina. Chicago politicians are assumed to be corrupt, and Rod Blagojevich helped reinforce that. Chris Christie lost the chance at the Presidency because his staff improperly utilized a bridge. Yet, the CJ doesn’t find it necessary for decisions of localities to provide transparency to those decisions. Thoroughly within the law, as CJ Roberts makes clear in his dissent, but, then again, so was Lochner and so is Citizens United. Bravo Justice Sotomayor. Bravo.
Follow Knolan at @LawOfDucats and listen to his full report on this week’s David Dorer Show