T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, Georgia

── T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, Georgia ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: May 21, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 24-13713 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 05/21/2026 Page: 1 of 21 FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-13713 ____________________ T-MOBILE SOUTH, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus CITY OF ROSWELL, GEORGIA, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:10-cv-01464-AT ____________________ Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, ABUDU, Circuit Judge, and CONWAY,* District Judge. WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge: * The Honorable Anne C. Conway, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation. USCA11 Case: 24-13713 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 05/21/2026 Page: 2 of 21 2 Opinion of the Court 24-13713 This appeal requires us to decide whether the federal ban of local “regulation” that “prohibit[s] or ha[s] the effect of prohibit- ing” the provision of cellular services applies to a municipal deci- sion to deny an individual permit application. 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(i). Sixteen years ago, T-Mobile applied for permis- sion to build a new cell phone tower in the City of Roswell, which denied the application. T-Mobile sued and alleged that the denial prevented it from providing service to some customers. The dis- trict court ruled in favor of T-Mobile after concluding that Ro- swell’s denial prevented T-Mobile from filling a gap in its services and that building a cell tower at its preferred location was the least intrusive means of filling that gap. Because T-Mobile may chal- lenge only Roswell’s “regulation” of cell tower siting under the ef- fective prohibition provision, not the denial of a single permit, we vacate and remand for further proceedings. I. BACKGROUND In February 2010, T-Mobile South “applied to build a new, 108-foot-tall cell phone tower on 2.8 acres of vacant residential property in the city of Roswell, Georgia.” T-Mobile S., LLC v. City of Roswell, 574 U.S. 293, 296 (2015). A zoning ordinance required per- mits for “all new wireless . . . facilities,” and it allowed their ap- proval or denial based on “consideration” of nine factors. Roswell denied the application. Id. at 298. T-Mobile sued Roswell under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56 (codified as amended in U.S.C. Titles 15, 18, and 47). It alleged three claims for relief: first, USCA11 Case: 24-13713 Document: 41-1 Date Filed: 05/21/2026 Page: 3 of 21 24-13713 Opinion of the Court 3 that the denial of its application “was not supported by substantial evidence” in a written record; second, that denial of its application rendered it “unable to fill a gap in coverage necessary to provide competitive, reliable, uninterrupted, in-building wireless tele- phone services”; and third, that denial of its application “ha[d] the effect of unreasonably discriminating among providers of function- ally equivalent serv