Global Tower Assets, LLC v. Town of Rome ( 2016 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-1140
GLOBAL TOWER ASSETS, LLC; NORTHEAST WIRELESS NETWORKS, LLC,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
TOWN OF ROME; ROME PLANNING BOARD,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Barron, Selya, and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Erica M. Johanson, with whom Neal F. Pratt, Jonathan A.
Pottle, and Eaton Peabody, were on brief, for appellants.
Theodore Small, with whom Issacson & Raymond, P.A. was on
brief, for appellees.
January 8, 2016
BARRON, Circuit Judge. The Telecommunications Act of
1996 ("TCA") provides relief to those who are denied permission to
build telecommunications facilities at the state or local level.
The TCA makes such relief available if state or local land use
authorities have denied such permission through "final action."
The TCA, however, does not define what counts as "final action."
The result has been disputes -- like this one -- over whether a
denial is a "final action."
We have considered this issue once before. We held then
that a local zoning board's denial of a special use permit and
variance to build a wireless tower did constitute "final action."
We recognized that the board's denial could have been reviewed in
state court under state law at the time that the TCA claim had
been filed. But we explained that Congress did not intend to make
TCA relief available only once that judicial process had run its
course. We concluded that the zoning board's denial counted as
"final action" because the denial marked the end of the
administrative process. As a result, we permitted the TCA claim
to proceed as a challenge to "final action." See Omnipoint Holdings
v. City of Cranston, 586 F.3d 38 (1st Cir. 2009).
This time the issue is somewhat different. It concerns
whether the administrative process itself has come to an end. The
issue arises because the appellants filed their TCA challenge to
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a local planning board decision at a time when that decision was
still subject to further review by a local board of appeals.
The appellants contend that the opportunity to bring an
administrative appeal should not prevent their TCA challenge from
going forward. But, in keeping with basic principles of
administrative law and the purposes of the TCA, we disagree. As
a matter of state law, the planning board's denial may be reviewed
in state court only after the local board of appeals has exercised
its own independent review. As a result, we agree with the
appellees -- the planning board and the Town of Rome, Maine --
that the planning board's decision does not mark the end of the
administrative process and thus is not a "final action" for TCA
purposes.
We thus affirm the District Court's dismissal of
appellants' TCA claims. We also affirm the District Court's
dismissal of appellants' separate federal constitutional due
process challenges, as we hold that the complaint failed to plead
facts sufficient to state such claims.
I.
The appellants are Northeast Wireless Networks, LLC and
Global Tower Assets, LLC ("Applicants"). Northeast Wireless holds
a Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") license to provide
personal communications service -- a form of wireless
communications technology -- in and around the Town of Rome, Maine
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("Rome"), which is one of the two appellees. Global Tower is a
company that assists wireless companies with locating and
constructing wireless communications towers.
Together, the Applicants acquired a leasehold interest
in land in Rome, on which land they seek to build a wireless
communications tower. Rome regulates the siting of wireless towers
via the "Town of Rome Wireless Telecommunications Facility Siting
Ordinance" (the "Ordinance").
The Ordinance requires applicants first to seek
permission to build from the Rome Planning Board (the "Planning
Board"), which, along with Rome, is the other appellee. The
Ordinance further provides that "[a]dministrative appeals and
variance applications submitted under this Ordinance shall be
subject to the standards and procedures established by the Town of
Rome Board of Appeals" (the "Board of Appeals").
On April 8, 2013, the Applicants sought permission from
the Planning Board to build the tower. The Planning Board held
its first meeting to discuss the application on May 20, 2013. Over
the course of the next several months, the Planning Board held a
number of additional meetings.
During this time, the Applicants objected repeatedly to
the Planning Board's procedures and to what the Applicants
perceived to be bias against the siting of the tower on the part
of Planning Board members whom the Applicants allege belonged to
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a local private organization, the Belgrade Region Conservation
Association (the "BRCA"). Over the course of the application
process, the Applicants and the Planning Board agreed on four
occasions to extend the deadline for the Planning Board to make
its decision on the application.
February 10, 2014, was the final day of the last agreed
upon extension. On that day, the Planning Board met, deliberated,
and voted to (a) adopt some of the findings of fact and conclusions
of law that the Planning Board's counsel had prepared in advance,
(b) adopt some of the specific findings included in section 10 of
the Ordinance, and (c) find that the application comported with
some of the requirements set forth in section 11 of the Ordinance.
The Planning Board then conducted a "completeness
review," during which the Planning Board determined that the
Applicants had not submitted written evidence of the need for the
tower. Lastly, the Planning Board voted to deny the Applicants'
application. Twenty-eight days later, on March 10, 2014, the
Planning Board issued a one page "decision" that memorialized the
February 10 votes.
The next day, the Applicants filed suit in the United
States District Court for the District of Maine. The complaint
alleged various claims under the TCA, the Due Process Clause of
the United States Constitution, and Maine law, both statutory and
constitutional.
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As to the TCA, the complaint alleged that the Planning
Board's decision violated the requirements of § 332(c)(7)(B) in
that the decision (1) unreasonably discriminated against the
providers of functionally equivalent services; (2) had the effect
of prohibiting the provision of wireless services; and (3) was not
"in writing and supported by substantial evidence on a written
record." The complaint also alleged that the Planning Board had
unreasonably delayed taking action on the application -- and thus
violated § 332(b)(7)(B)(ii) -- by failing "to issue a written
decision within the mutually agreed upon review period."
As to the federal constitutional claim, the Applicants
alleged that the Planning Board's procedures -- including ex parte
communications -- and perceived bias on the part of those Planning
Board members who also belonged to the BRCA denied them a fair and
impartial tribunal, as well as notice and an opportunity to be
heard.
Rome moved to dismiss the complaint under both Rule
12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6). Analyzing the motion under Rule
12(b)(6),1 the District Court dismissed the majority of the TCA
1
The District Court noted that in Omnipoint, 586 F.3d at 45
n.4, we left open the question of whether the TCA's "final action"
requirement was jurisdictional. Global Tower Assets, 2014 WL
3784233 at *1 n.2. Finding that the result would be the same under
12(b)(1) or 12(b)(6), the District Court similarly avoided the
question whether the "final action" requirement is jurisdictional
and analyzed the motion under 12(b)(6). Id. We do the same.
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claims, without prejudice, because the Applicants had not appealed
to the Board of Appeals at the time that the Applicants filed their
TCA claim. Global Tower Assets, LLC. v. Town of Rome, Me., No.
1:14–cv–00085–GZS, 2014 WL 3784233, *10 (D. Me. July 31, 2014).
For that reason, the District Court held that the Planning Board's
denial of the application was not a "final action" that Applicants
were entitled to challenge under the TCA. Id.; see 47 U.S.C. §
332(c)(7)(B)(v).
The District Court also dismissed the unreasonable
delay claim that the Applicants brought under the TCA. Global
Tower Assets, 2014 WL 3784233 at *7. The District Court concluded
that the Applicants failed to plead facts adequate to allege that
the Planning Board had not issued a written decision. Id.("Despite this allegation, Plaintiffs expressly allege that the
Planning Board 'adopted findings of fact and conclusions of law
concerning the Application' prior to the expiration of the agreed
upon review period and then detail twenty-four of those findings
and conclusions. Therefore, Plaintiffs' claim in paragraph 95 of
the Complaint is belied by their factual own [sic]
allegations.")(citations omitted)(quoting complaint).
With respect to the Applicants' Due Process claims (both
procedural and substantive), the District Court dismissed them
with prejudice. Id. at *11. The District Court ruled that the
allegations set forth in the complaint did not rise to the level
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of a federal constitutional violation. Id. Having thus disposed
of all of the federal claims, the District Court declined to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law
claims. Id. The District Court therefore dismissed those state
claims without prejudice. Id.
The Applicants now bring this appeal. We start with
their challenge to the Planning Board's denial of their application
under the TCA. We then consider their federal constitutional
challenge.
II.
The Applicants' complaint alleges that the Planning
Board's decision violated the TCA because its denial unreasonably
discriminated between providers of functionally equivalent
services, effectively prohibited the provision of wireless
services, and was not in writing or supported by substantial
evidence on a written record. See 47 U.S.C. §
332(c)(7)(B)(i)&(iii). The dispositive question for us as to these
claims, however, is whether they may be heard at all. And
resolution of that question turns on whether the Planning Board's
decision constitutes a "final action . . . by a State or local
government or any instrumentality thereof." Id. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v).
Resolution of that same question is also potentially
determinative of the only other TCA claim that is before us: the
Applicants' allegation of unreasonable delay under 47 U.S.C. §
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332(c)(7)(B)(ii). This claim rests on the Applicants' allegation
that the Planning Board never issued a written decision, as §
332(c)(7)(B)(iii) requires.
The "written decision" requirement appears to apply,
however, only to actions that are "final" within the meaning of
the TCA. Indeed, it would be odd for that requirement to apply to
an interim decision. The only decisions that may be challenged
under the TCA, after all, are ones that are "final." Nor do the
Applicants make any developed argument to the contrary. Thus, if
the Planning Board's decision is not a "final action" because no
appeal was taken to the Board of Appeals, then any delay in the
Board's issuance of a "written decision" would be of no moment.
Rather, the only delay that might matter would be any delay
resulting from the Board of Appeals' failure to have issued a
timely "written decision."
The Applicants do not argue in their briefing to us,
however, that they assert an unreasonable delay claim that is based
on the fact that the Board of Appeals failed to take "final action"
or to issue a "written decision" in a sufficiently timely fashion.
And, at oral argument, counsel for the Applicants disclaimed any
intention to make such a claim on appeal. Thus, we treat any such
claim as waived. The result is that we may affirm the District
Court's dismissal of the only unreasonable delay claim that is
before us on the ground that the Planning Board's denial does not
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count as "final action," see Wash. Legal Found. v. Mass. Bar
Found., 993 F.2d 962, 971 (1st Cir. 1993)("We may affirm the
district court's order on any independently sufficient grounds."),
assuming, that is, we conclude that the denial does not.
In sum, in evaluating the dismissal of the Applicants'
TCA claims, we address only whether the Planning Board's denial of
the application in this case constitutes "final action." And that
is because our conclusion that the Planning Board's denial does
not constitute "final action" suffices to support the affirmance
of the dismissal of all of the TCA claims at issue in this appeal.
III.
Before we directly offer our reasons for reaching the
conclusion that the Planning Board's denial is not "final action"
under the TCA, we need to provide some important background. We
thus begin by describing in more general terms what counts as
"final action" under the TCA. We then apply that "final action"
requirement to the case at hand.
A.
As usual, we start with the relevant statutory text.
See Sepulveda v. United States, 330 F.3d 55, 64 (1st Cir. 2003).
The TCA provides that: "Any person adversely affected by any final
action or failure to act by a State or local government or any
instrumentality thereof that is inconsistent with this
subparagraph may, within 30 days after such action or failure to
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act, commence an action in any court of competent jurisdiction."
47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v).
In Omnipoint, we noted that "final action" is not defined
in the TCA. 586 F.3d at 46. We explained, however, that "[t]he
terms 'final' and 'final action' have special meaning in the law,"
and that "we assume Congress knew the content of background law
when legislating." Id. (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted).
Significantly, the finality of administrative action
serves as a prerequisite to obtaining judicial relief under not
only the TCA, but also the statute that generally governs the
review of federal administrative agency action, the Administrative
Procedure Act ("APA"). See Telecommunications Act of 1996,
H.R.Rep. No. 104–458, at 209 (1996) (Conf.Rep.), as reprinted in
1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 124, 223 (clarifying that "final action" means
a "final administrative action at the State or local government
level so that a party can commence action . . . rather than waiting
for the exhaustion of any independent state court remedy otherwise
required." (emphasis added)); 5 U.S.C. § 704. And the TCA uses
words nearly identical to those used in the APA in setting forth
its finality requirement: "final action." Compare 47 U.S.C. §
332(c)(7)(b)(v) with 5 U.S.C. § 704 (using the term "final agency
action").
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Thus, Omnipoint drew upon the meaning of "final" agency
action under the APA in construing the TCA's own finality
requirement. Id. at 45-47. And recently, the Supreme Court did
the same. See T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, Ga., __
U.S. __, 135 S.Ct. 808, 817 n.4 (2015)(relying on the Supreme
Court's analysis of the APA's finality requirement in Bennett v.
Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 178 (1996)). Accordingly, we follow that
same course here, just as courts usually have looked to the APA's
finality requirement when construing federal statutes that
condition judicial review on the finality of agency action but
that do not independently define what counts as final action. See
Impact Energy Resources v. Salazar, 693 F.3d 1239, 1254 (10th Cir.
2012) (Seymour, J., concurring)("When interpreting the meaning of
the word 'final' in statutes using that term in relation to
judicial review of agencies, courts commonly apply the APA's
meaning of 'final.' . . . Federal courts regularly apply the APA's
meaning of 'final' to other statutes using the term in relation to
judicial review of agency actions and decisions."); id. at 1262
(Tymkovich, J., dissenting)(stating that "[o]ther courts have
applied the APA definition of 'final' to other statutes using that
word in the context of judicial review" and collecting cases).
B.
In determining the meaning of the TCA's "final action"
requirement, we note that a key aspect of finality under the APA
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is whether the agency action at issue "mark[s] the 'consummation'
of the agency's decisionmaking process" or is instead "of a merely
tentative or interlocutory nature." Bennett, 520 U.S. at 178.
That was the aspect of finality that was at issue in Omnipoint,
and that is the aspect of finality that is at issue here.2
In Omnipoint, it was easy to conclude that this aspect
of finality had been satisfied. There was no dispute in Omnipoint
over whether the administrative agency -- the zoning board of
review -- had come to a final and definitive judgment. It clearly
had. The only issue was whether the availability of a state
judicial remedy prevented that otherwise definitive administrative
decision from qualifying as "final action." Omnipoint, 586 F.3d
at 45-46. Because the TCA made clear that a "final action" was "a
final administrative action," see id. at 47 (quoting
Telecommunications Act of 1996, H.R.Rep. No. 104–458, at 209 (1996)
(Conf.Rep.), as reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 124, 223) (emphasis
added), we held that the availability of judicial review did not
suffice to strip the zoning board's decision of its finality. Id.Here, the case for finding finality is not so
straightforward. The Planning Board may have rendered a decision
that represents its definitive judgment. But that decision is
2
The other aspect of finality, not at issue here, is whether
the disputed action was "one by which 'rights or obligations have
been determined,' or from which 'legal consequences will flow.'"
Bennett, 520 U.S. at 178.
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still subject to an appeal to the Board of Appeals. It is thus
the prospect of relief via administrative (rather than judicial)
appeal that grounds the contention that there has not yet been a
"final administrative action." See Telecommunications Act of
1996, H.R.Rep. No. 104–458, at 209 (1996) (Conf.Rep.), as reprinted
in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 124, 223. In consequence, the case for
questioning the finality of the administrative decision at issue
-- the Planning Board's denial of the appellants' application to
build -- is considerably stronger than it was in Omnipoint.
To be sure, as a general matter, Congress does not intend
for the availability of additional avenues of administrative
relief to prevent federal agency action from counting as "final"
agency action under the APA. See 5 U.S.C. § 704. The Supreme
Court made that much clear in interpreting the APA's final action
requirement in Darby v. Cisneros, 509 U.S. 137 (1993). Darby
explained that, as a general matter, courts may not make the
exhaustion of further avenues of administrative relief that the
agency may make available a precondition to securing judicial
relief under the APA, such as by availing oneself of the
opportunity to request reconsideration by the agency or by taking
an administrative appeal that the agency may permit. See id. at
154.
Darby also noted, however, that the APA expressly
qualifies this general rule. See id.; see also 5 U.S.C. § 704.
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Darby explained that sometimes federal agencies set up a two-stage
administrative process for taking "final action," in which the
agency provides by rule that an initial agency decision must be
reviewed administratively before the agency intends for it to
represent the agency's last word. 509 U.S. at 154; 5 U.S.C. §
704. And, Darby made clear, when agencies opt to make final
administrative determinations in this two-stage way, their initial
administrative decisions are not "final" -- and thus not subject
to judicial review under the APA -- at least if that initial agency
decision has not itself altered the legal status quo. See Darby,
509 U.S. at 154; 5 U.S.C. § 704; Manny Indus. v. Sec'y of Labor,
432 F. Supp. 88, 89 (C.D. Cal. 1977) ("An initial decision probably
should be considered inoperative even though the claim is refused,
the license is denied, or the suspension order is not lifted.")
(quoting 3 Kenneth Culp Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, § 20.08
at 106) aff'd Manny Indus. v. Sec'y of Labor, 596 F.2d 409 (9th
Cir. 1979); Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative
Procedure Act 105 (1947); Kenneth Culp Davis, Administrative Law
Doctrines of Exhaustion of Remedies, Ripeness for Review, and
Primary Jurisdiction: 1, 28 Tex. L. Rev. 168, 193 (1949)(same).
C.
Against this background, what remains for us to decide
in construing the TCA's "final action" requirement is the
following. We must decide whether there is any special reason to
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construe the TCA's requirement to diverge from the APA's, such
that "State[s] or local government[s] or any instrumentalit[ies]
thereof," see 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v), may not reach a "final
administrative action" in two stages rather than one, even though
federal agencies may do so under the APA. In our view, nothing
about the TCA suggests that it should be construed to break with
the APA in this regard.
As we have noted, the phrasing of the TCA's finality
requirement, "final action," is nearly identical to the APA's.
Compare 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(b)(v)(using the term "final action")
with 5 U.S.C. § 704 (using the term "final agency action"). Thus,
the text of the TCA does not indicate that Congress intended to
prevent state and local governments from structuring their
administrative processes for making "final" determinations in the
same way that the APA permits federal agencies to structure theirs.
The TCA's legislative history, moreover, accords with
this interpretation of the text. The conference report to the TCA
makes clear that the process through which a "final administrative
action" is taken does not include the process through which a state
judicial remedy may be secured. See Telecommunications Act of
1996, H.R.Rep. No. 104–458, at 209 (1996) (Conf.Rep.), as reprinted
in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 124, 223. In doing so, however, that report
in no way suggests that states and localities are constrained in
how they may choose to structure the process through which they
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take "final administrative action" that may then be reviewed in
court. See id. And, consistent with the conference report, the
TCA's "design, structure, and purpose," Omnipoint, 586 F.3d at 46(quoting Cablevision of Bos., Inc. v. Pub. Improvement Comm'n, 184
F.3d 88, 101 (1st Cir. 1999)), all support reading this statute's
"final action" requirement, like the APA's, to afford government
the power to make "final" administrative decisions through a two-
stage process.
A key purpose of the TCA, after all, is to preserve state
and local land use authority. See ATC Realty, LLC v. Town of
Kingston, N.H., 303 F.3d 91, 94 (1st Cir. 2002)(noting that the
TCA embodies, in part, "the desire to preserve state and local
control over zoning matters"). Indeed, the very section of the
TCA that creates the relevant cause of action is entitled
"Preservation of local zoning authority." 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7).
That purpose is obviously well served by construing the
TCA to respect a state or locality's choice not to treat an initial
administrative decision as the last word when that decision must
be reviewed administratively before it may be reviewed judicially.
Otherwise, we would be attributing to Congress an intention to
treat a local agency's decision as if it were more definitive than
state or local law itself appears to treat it. This construction
of the TCA also preserves the authority of state and local land
use authority in another way. Such a construction gives state and
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local actors more room to resolve land use disputes on their own,
without judges intervening and imposing the federal standards that
the TCA sets forth.
To be sure, another (and somewhat competing) purpose of
the TCA is to ensure the availability of prompt federal statutory
relief from local land use decisions that unduly impede the build-
out of much needed information infrastructure. See Omnipoint, 586
F.3d at 47 ("The Act stresses the need for speedily deploying
telecommunications and seeks to get prompt resolution of disputes
under the Act."); ATC Realty, 303 F.3d at 94. But this purpose is
not unduly frustrated by construing the "final action" requirement
to permit states and localities to deploy a two-stage
administrative process for rendering a decision that may then be
reviewed judicially. Such a two-stage process may put off the
opportunity for judicial review for a while. But that very process
also may increase the chance that an otherwise erroneous denial of
a building application will be identified and rectified, thereby
obviating the need for initiating the lengthy judicial review
process in the first place.
Finally, there is little risk that, by construing the
TCA's "final action" requirement in this manner, we will enable
states and localities to undermine the TCA's effective operation.
The TCA's unreasonable delay provision places an outer limit on
the time that a state or local government may take to come to a
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"final" decision. See 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(ii). That
provision, as interpreted by the FCC, presumptively gives state
and local governments only 150 days to come to a decision on
applications to construct wireless facilities, subject to
extension by mutual agreement. In re Petition for Declaratory
Ruling, 24 FCC Rcd. 13994, 13995 (2009); see City of Arlington,
Tx. v. FCC, 569 U.S. __, 133 S.Ct. 1863 (2013) (upholding the FCC's
interpretation). And that presumptive time-limit applies no
matter how cumbersome or streamlined a state or local government
(or an instrumentality thereof) chooses to make its administrative
process.
D.
The Applicants object that this reading of the TCA
mistakenly conflates the concepts of finality and exhaustion. In
pressing that contention, the Applicants rely on the Supreme
Court's emphasis in Williamson County Regional Planning Comm'n v.
Hamilton Bank of Johnson City on the distinction between those two
concepts. See 473 U.S. 172, 192-193 (1985) (explaining that "[t]he
finality requirement is concerned with whether the initial
decision maker has arrived at a definitive position on the issue
that inflicts an actual concrete injury" while exhaustion
"generally refers to administrative and judicial procedures by
which an injured party may seek review of an adverse decision and
obtain a remedy if the decision is found to be unlawful or
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otherwise inappropriate"). But the Applicants are mistaken to do
so.
Following Williamson County, the Supreme Court in Darby
addressed how exhaustion bears on the finality requirement under
the APA, and Darby did so by drawing on the distinction Williamson
County drew between exhaustion and finality. Darby, 509 U.S. at
144. In doing so, Darby clarified that, as a general matter,
federal judges may not require those aggrieved by federal agency
action to exhaust additional levels of administrative review
before seeking relief from "final" agency action under the APA.
Id. at 153-54. But, as we have explained, Darby then went on to
make clear that the APA provides in some limited circumstances
that an agency action is not final precisely because an agency
rule or a statute requires that the agency action must be reviewed
administratively. See 5 U.S.C. § 704; Darby, 509 U.S. at 154.
And, in such circumstances, Darby further explained, the required
administrative review both imposes an exhaustion requirement and
makes plain that the underlying agency action is not a "final"
one. See Darby, 509 U.S. at 154.3
3
Our analysis of the TCA's "final action" requirement accords
with the Seventh Circuit's holding in Sprint Spectrum L.P. v. City
of Carmel, 361 F.3d 998 (7th Cir. 2004), which we cited approvingly
in Omnipoint, 586 F.3d at 47. Sprint Spectrum held that a local
denial of an application to build a telecommunications facility
was not "final" under the TCA because the denial merely required
the applicant to seek a variance. Sprint Spectrum, 361 F.3d at
1004-05. Sprint Spectrum did not address whether a local denial
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Thus, in construing the TCA's "final action" requirement
to accord with the APA's similar requirement, as spelled out in
Darby, we do not create any tension with Williamson County. Nor
do we confuse exhaustion with finality. We simply recognize, as
Darby did, that sometimes these two concepts overlap. See Am.
Dairy of Evansville, Inc. v. Bergland, 627 F.2d 1252, 1260 (D.C.
Cir. 1980) ("[W]e note that the requirements of finality and
exhaustion are inextricably intertwined."); see also Grace
Community Church v. Lenox Twp., 544 F.3d 609, 614 (6th Cir.
2008)("Exhaustion and finality . . . sometimes overlap."); Franks
v. Nimmo, 683 F.2d 1290, 1295 (10th Cir. 1982)("The doctrine[s] of
'finality' and 'exhaustion' are closely intertwined."). And, as
Darby recognized, such overlap occurs when an agency requires an
initial administrative denial of a permit to be appealed
administratively before it may be deemed to be the kind of "final"
administrative action that the APA permits an aggrieved party to
challenge in court under that Act.4 See Darby, 509 U.S. at 154.
of such an application would constitute final action under the TCA
if that denial were more definitive but could only be reviewed
judicially under state law after the denial had been appealed
administratively. See id.4 We note that Sprint Spectrum looked to how Williamson County
analyzed ripeness, rather than to how the finality requirement
under the APA has been interpreted, in construing the TCA's "final
action" requirement. Id. at 1004. In Williamson County, the
Supreme Court determined that a Takings Clause claim premised on
the denial of approval of a preliminary plat was not "ripe" when
the local planning commission did not deny approval outright, but
instead required the petitioner to seek a variance. See 473 U.S.
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E.
Against this background, we now must apply the TCA's
final action requirement to the facts before us. In particular,
we must resolve whether the prospect of the Board of Appeals'
review of the Planning Board's denial bars that denial from
qualifying as "final action" under the TCA. In keeping with the
TCA's respect for the preservation of local land use authority, we
answer that question by looking to both the Ordinance and Maine
law.
The parties do not dispute that, as a general matter,
Maine state courts may review a local land use decision like the
one at issue here only after it has been reviewed by a Board of
Appeals, if such a Board is in place. See Wister v. Town of Mount
at 186, 193-94. The Court stated that "the Commission's denial of
approval does not conclusively determine whether respondent will
be denied all reasonable beneficial use of its property, and
therefore is not a final, reviewable decision." Id. at 194.
Williamson County did also state in dicta that "respondent would
not be required to appeal the Commission's rejection of the
preliminary plat to the Board of Zoning Appeals, because the Board
was empowered, at most, to review that rejection, not to
participate in the Commission's decision making." Id. at 193. But,
in making that statement, the Supreme Court was addressing only
when a constitutional Takings case is "ripe" for the purposes of
Article III of the Constitution, and not a statutory "final" action
requirement. See id. Ripeness and finality are distinct concepts,
even though they may overlap in some cases. See Unity08 v. FEC,
596 F.3d 861, 866 (D.C. Cir. 2010); 3 Pierce, Administrative Law
Treatise, § 15.17. Thus, Williamson County did not address the
finality issue that is relevant here. For while some agency action
that is not ripe is also not final, see Sprint Spectrum, 361 F.3d
at 1004-05, an action may be ripe under Williamson County even
though it is not final.
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Desert, 974 A.2d 903, 909-11 (Me. 2009)(discussing Maine law's
general requirement that land use and zoning appeals are first
heard by a zoning board of appeals, rather than a state court).
Thus, under Maine law, Rome necessarily made review by the Board
of Appeals a prerequisite to judicial review of the Planning
Board's denial when Rome provided in the Ordinance that
"[a]dministrative appeals . . . submitted under this Ordinance
shall be subject to the standards and procedures established by
the Town of Rome Board of Appeals." And so we agree with Rome and
the Planning Board that, by opting for this two-stage decision
making process in the Ordinance, initial administrative decisions
concerning applications to build telecommunications facilities in
Rome (such as the Planning Board's denial of the application here)
are not the final administrative determinations that state law
deems to be subject to judicial review.
Moreover, although the Ordinance does not expressly
address the legal status of the Planning Board's denial of an
application during the pendency of the Board of Appeals' review,
it is clear that the Planning Board's denial did not itself alter
the legal status quo. The Applicants could not build the tower
before the Planning Board denied the application, just as they
could not build the tower afterwards. See Manny Indus., 596 F.2d
at 409(affirming Manny Indus., 432 F. Supp. 88); see also Attorney
General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act 105 (1947);
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Davis, Administrative Law Doctrines of Exhaustion of Remedies,
Ripeness for Review, And Primary Jurisdiction: 1, 28 Tex. L. Rev.
at 193 (same).
Thus, we are presented here with a two-stage
administrative process for taking "final administrative action"
much like the one that the APA recognizes that federal agencies
may sometimes employ to take "final action." See 5 U.S.C. § 704;
Darby, 509 U.S. at 154. And so, just as a federal agency's initial
denial of a permit is not final under the APA when an agency rule
or a statute requires further administrative review, so, too, the
Planning Board's action is not "final" under the TCA, given the
administrative review that the Board of Appeals must undertake in
consequence of the Ordinance and Maine law.5
5 The TCA provides for judicial review of "any final action
or failure to act by a State or local government or any
instrumentality thereof." 47 U.S.C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). In
Omnipoint, we stated in dicta that the zoning board in that case
was an "instrumentality" of the City of Cranston, Rhode Island.
586 F.3d at 47. Applicants contend that the Planning Board
constitutes an "instrumentality" of the "local government," Rome,
and that, for that reason, we may not consider the fact that the
Planning Board's denial is subject to appeal to the Board of
Appeals in determining whether that denial constitutes "final
action." But whether a decision has been made by an
instrumentality, and whether the decision that an instrumentality
has made qualifies as "final action," are two separate questions.
For the reasons we have explained, an administrative decision that
may not be reviewed judicially until it has been reviewed
administratively is simply not a "final action" under the TCA,
just as it would not be under the APA. Therefore,
instrumentalities can make tentative or interlocutory decisions,
which are not "final" within the meaning of the TCA. And an
instrumentality does so when it denies an application to build and
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F.
The Applicants contend in the alternative that the
District Court reversibly erred in ruling that the Planning Board's
denial does not count as "final action," because the Board of
Appeals had not been "properly created" and thus the Applicants
could not be required to take an appeal to that Board. In making
this argument, the Applicants acknowledge that the Ordinance
expressly references the Board of Appeals. The Applicants also
acknowledge that the District Court correctly ruled that the
Ordinance "'merge[ed] into the pleadings'" and thus "properly
consider[ed] it under a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss."
Alternative Energy, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 267
F.3d 30, 33 (1st Cir. 2001); Global Tower Assets, 2014 WL 3784233at *2 n.3. The Applicants nevertheless contend that they have met
their burden of pleading that they are challenging a "final action"
under the TCA. Cf. Colo. Farm Bureau Fed'n v. United States Forest
Serv., 220 F.3d 1171, 1173 (10th Cir. 2000)("Plaintiffs have the
burden of identifying specific federal conduct and explaining how
it is 'final agency action.'")(citing Lujan v. Nat'l Wildlife Fed.,
497 U.S. 871, 882 (1990)).
that denial must be reviewed administratively before state law
permits state court review. Thus, the characterization of the
denial in this case as one made by a "local government" or "an
instrumentality thereof" is no more determinative here than it was
in Omnipoint, as the key point is that the Planning Board, however
characterized, did not take "final action."
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In making this argument, the Applicants contend in part
that they were not required to plead that the Board of Appeals was
not properly created, because exhaustion of remedies is an
affirmative defense that plaintiffs generally need not allege in
their complaint. See Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 212, 217 (2007).
But this argument simply confuses exhaustion with finality. And
there is no doubt that the Applicants do bear the burden of
demonstrating that they are challenging "final action." See Colo.
Farm Bureau Fed'n, 220 F.3d at 1173 (10th Cir. 2000)(citing Lujan,
497 U.S. at 882).
Nor is there any doubt that the Applicants' complaint,
standing on its own, does not meet that burden, given the reference
to the Board of Appeals in the Ordinance. After all, the
Applicants concede that the District Court properly considered the
Ordinance in deciding the 12(b)(6) motion. And once the District
Court did consider the Ordinance -- and its reference to the Board
of Appeals -- the only fair inference that could be drawn from the
complaint was that the Board of Appeals existed and could hear an
appeal from the Planning Board, as neither the complaint, nor any
document attached to the complaint, supported any inference to the
contrary.
The Applicants respond that the District Court
nevertheless "work[ed] a substantial injustice" by taking account
of the Ordinance but not their contrary evidence concerning the
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Board of Appeals before dismissing their complaint. That evidence
consisted of a paralegal's affidavit, attached to the memorandum
of law in opposition to Rome's motion to dismiss. The affidavit
stated that an examination of Rome's town warrants showed that the
Board had never been formed.
There are obvious differences, however, between the
Ordinance and the paralegal's affidavit. And those differences
bear on whether both should have been considered in assessing the
12(b)(6) motion, under the narrow exception to the rule that
district courts may not ordinarily examine documents outside of
the complaint in assessing motions to dismiss.6 See Alternative
Energy, 267 F.3d at 33 (quoting Watterson v. Page, 987 F.2d 1, 3
(1st Cir. 1993))(describing the exception "for documents the
authenticity of which are not disputed by the parties; for official
public records; for documents central to plaintiffs' claim; or for
documents sufficiently referred to in the complaint."). But while
the Applicants concede that the Ordinance may be merged into the
complaint under that exception, they make no argument to us that
the paralegal's affidavit qualifies for that exception as well.
It is thus hard to see -- without more argument than the Applicants
6
The District Court's decision analyzed the issue under Rule
12(b)(6), and the Applicants make no developed argument that it
was wrong to do so. Therefore, the Applicants' arguments about
what the District Court could have done had it addressed the issue
under Rule 12(b)(1) are irrelevant.
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have put forward -- what error the District Court committed in
relying on the Ordinance, but not the affidavit, in evaluating
whether the complaint pled facts sufficient to show that the
Applicants were challenging a "final action."
Furthermore, we note that the District Court's decision
not to merge the affidavit into the complaint hardly left the
Applicants without options. The Applicants could have simply
sought to amend their complaint to add the necessary allegations
after the Applicants' complaint had been dismissed without
prejudice. Instead, however, the Applicants chose to move for
reconsideration under Rule 59(e), at which point they again
attempted to present their evidence that the Board of Appeals had
not been properly formed. But having done so, they then chose not
to appeal the denial of that motion on this ground.
IV.
We now turn to the Applicants' federal constitutional
due process claims. The Applicants make no effort on appeal to
distinguish between their procedural and substantive due process
claims, and the District Court dismissed their federal due process
"claims" without distinguishing between them. Global Tower
Assets, 2014 WL 3784233 at *11. But we briefly consider each
separately.
As to the Applicants' procedural due process claim, they
do not address on appeal the fact that state law provided them a
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process for seeking relief from the action of the Planning Board
through appeal to the Board of Appeals, and in state court
thereafter. See Wister, 974 A.2d at 907-12 (discussing Maine state
court review of local land use decisions). Thus, to the extent
that the Applicants' challenge to the District Court's dismissal
of their procedural due process claim is not waived for lack of
developed argument on appeal, see United States v. Zannino, 895
F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990), the challenge fails on the merits, as
we have no basis for concluding that the applicants lacked an
adequate state law remedy for any of the procedural defects that
they allege. See Licari v. Ferruzzi, 22 F.3d 344, 348 (1st Cir.
1990).
The Applicants' substantive due process claim is
premised on the purported conflict of interest that some members
of the Planning Board had between their duties on the Planning
Board and their membership in the BRCA, which publicly opposed the
tower. Applicants' complaint alleges that those Planning Board
members, through their membership in the BRCA, had a financial
interest in conservation easements the BRCA held. Applicants'
complaint also alleges that one member's brother was approached by
a competitor to site a cell tower on his property, abutting the
property where Applicants sought to site theirs. The apparent
implication -- nowhere actually stated in the complaint -- is that
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the members conspired to block Applicants' tower in order to
facilitate the brother leasing his land to the competitor.
As we have long noted, the "run of the mill" land use
dispute does not give rise to a viable substantive due process
challenge. See Creative Environments, Inc. v. Eastabrook, 680
F.2d 822, 833 (1st Cir. 1982). And for good reason: "Every appeal
by a disappointed developer from an adverse ruling by a local . .
. planning board necessarily involves some claim that the board
exceeded, abused or 'distorted' its legal authority in some manner,
often for some allegedly perverse (from the developer's point of
view) reason." Id. Given that the door to substantive due process
claims in the land use context is only "slightly ajar" for "truly
horrendous situations," Licari, 22 F.3d at 350 (quoting Nestor
Colon Medina & Successors, Inc. v. Custodio, 964 F.2d 32, 45 (1st
Cir. 1992)), "we see nothing in the present case to distinguish it
sufficiently from the usual land developer's claim under state law
to warrant recognition of a federal constitutional question."
Creative Environments, 680 F.2d at 833.
The Applicants do contend that they "were subjected to
a 10-month sham process." But, as they acknowledge, they agreed
to extend the process on four separate occasions. And, in any
case, such claims face a high bar. See Chiplin Enterprises, Inc.
v. City of Lebanon, 712 F.2d 1524, 1528 (1st Cir. 1983)(complaint
did not state a due process claim when it alleged "bad-faith" five
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year delay in granting building permit); see also Rumford Pharmacy,
Inc. v. City of East Providence, 970 F.2d 996, 1000 n. 8 (1st Cir.
1992). Moreover, the Applicants' vague allegations of conflicts
of interest and financially motivated conspiracy do not -- at least
without far more -- show that the Planning Board acted in the kind
of conscience-shocking fashion that we require for substantive due
process challenges to make it past the gate. See Creative
Environments, 680 F.2d at 833; Licari, 22 F.3d at 350.
V.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the District
Court's order and judgment of dismissal.
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