T-Mobile Suit Against Local Zoning Board Ripe, 3rd Circuit Rules
The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed with a lower court that last March rejected as untimely a T-Mobile lawsuit against a local zoning board that denied the carrier's wireless antenna application in Wilmington, Delaware (see 1803270047). The appeals…
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court remanded the case Thursday to the U.S. District Court in Wilmington. While disagreeing with T-Mobile that the zoning board’s oral decision qualified as a final action, the court agrees “jurisdiction was proper in the District Court because the timing requirement in the [Telecom Act’s] review provision is non-jurisdictional” and the carrier’s “supplemental complaint therefore relates back and cures the ripeness problem with the initial complaint,” wrote Judge Kent Jordan. “The District Court should thus have reached the merits of the dispute.” Judge Richard Nygaard joined the decision; a third judge, Thomas Vanaskie, retired after argument and conference but before the opinion was issued. Friday, T-Mobile and Wilmington didn’t comment.