T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell

T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided January 14, 2015
Full case name	T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell
Citations	574 U.S. 293 ( more )
Holding
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires a locality that denies an application to build cell phone tower to state its reasons for denial with sufficient clarity in a written record issued essentially contemporaneously with the denial.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas  · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer  · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Sotomayor
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Ginsberg; Thomas (Part I only)
Dissent	Thomas
Laws applied
Telecommunications Act of 1996

T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, 574 U.S. 293(2015), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires a locality that denies an application to build cell-phone tower to state its reasons for denial with sufficient clarity in a written record issued essentially contemporaneously with the denial. ^{[1] [2]}

Background

Roswell, Georgia's city council (Council) held a public hearing to consider an application by T-Mobile South, LLC, to build a cell-phone tower on residential property. During the hearing, several Council members expressed concerns about the tower's impact on the area. The hearing ended with the Council unanimously passing a motion to deny the application. Two days later, the City's Planning and Zoning Division informed petitioner by letter that the application had been denied and that minutes from the hearing would be made available. The detailed minutes were published 26 days later. ^[1]

T-Mobile filed suit, alleging that the Council's denial was not supported by substantial evidence in the record. The federal District Court agreed, concluding that the City, by failing to issue a written decision stating its reasons for denying the application, had violated the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which provides that a locality's denial "shall be in writing and supported by substantial evidence contained in a written record." The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, following its precedent, found that the act's requirements were satisfied here because petitioner had received a denial letter and possessed a transcript of the hearing that it arranged to have recorded. ^[1]

Opinion of the court

The Supreme Court issued an opinion on January 14, 2015. ^[1]

References

1. T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, 574 U.S. 293 (2015).
2. Seifter, Miriam (January 16, 2015). "Opinion analysis: Reason-giving, federalism, and a partial win for cell towers". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved September 15, 2025.

External links

• Text of T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, 574 U.S. 293(2015) is available from: Cornell Findlaw Justia

This article incorporates written opinion of a United States federal court. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the text is in the public domain .