Abrams v. City of Rancho Palos Verdes

• Decision Date: 15 January 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-55681.,02-55681.
• Citation: 354 F.3d 1094
• Parties: Mark J. ABRAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF RANCHO PALOS VERDES, a Municipality; City of Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, Defendants-Appellees, and Frank Lyon; Jon Cartwright; Thomas Long; Craig Mueller; Theodore Paulson; Donald Vannorsdall; John McTaggart; Douglas W. Stern; Lee Byrd; Barbara Ferraro; Marilyn Lyon; and Larry Clark, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

354 F.3d 1094

Mark J. ABRAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF RANCHO PALOS VERDES, a Municipality; City of Rancho Palos Verdes City Council, Defendants-Appellees, and Frank Lyon; Jon Cartwright; Thomas Long; Craig Mueller; Theodore Paulson; Donald Vannorsdall; John McTaggart; Douglas W. Stern; Lee Byrd; Barbara Ferraro; Marilyn Lyon; and Larry Clark, Defendants.

No. 02-55681.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted August 7, 2003.

Filed January 15, 2004.

Wilkie Cheong, Cheong, Denove, Rowell, & Bennett, Los Angeles, CA, for the plaintiff-appellant.

Carol W. Lynch, City Attorney, City of Rancho Palos Verdes, T. Peter Pierce and Gregory M. Kunert, Richards, Watson, and Gershon, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-00-09071-SVW.

Before: KOZINSKI and T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judges, and JANE A. RESTANI,^* Judge.

T.G. NELSON, Circuit Judge.

Mark J. Abrams appeals the district court's denial of § 1983¹ damages. The district court found that the City of Rancho Palos Verdes ("City") violated Abrams' rights under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("TCA"). Nonetheless, the court concluded that Congress intended the TCA to provide a comprehensive remedial scheme, thus barring additional remedies under § 1983. We disagree. Section 1983 remedies are available because the TCA does not contain a comprehensive remedial scheme. Therefore, we reverse and remand to the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

Abrams is a Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") licensed, amateur radio operator. He also provides commercial, mobile radio services (otherwise known as personal wireless services) from his home. In 1989, the City issued Abrams a permit to construct an antenna on his property for his amateur use.² Abrams used his antenna for both amateur and commercial purposes.

Ten years later, the City learned of Abrams' unauthorized commercial use. The City obtained an injunction preventing Abrams from using his antenna for commercial purposes until he obtained a conditional use permit ("CUP"). However, when Abrams applied for the CUP, the City denied it.

Abrams filed the present action, claiming that the City violated his rights under the TCA. Invoking § 1983, Abrams sought declaratory relief, injunctive relief, damages, attorney's fees, and costs. The district court agreed with Abrams and found that the City did not have a valid reason to deny Abrams a CUP, and ordered the City to grant Abrams' permit. However, the district court concluded that the TCA subsumed all of Abrams' remedies. Thus, the court declined his request for damages, attorney's fees, and costs. Abrams appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

The parties do not dispute the facts in this case. Therefore, the only question before us is whether the TCA contains a comprehensive remedial scheme, evincing Congress's intent to preclude remedies under § 1983.³ The Ninth Circuit has never answered this question.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo the district court's statutory interpretation of § 1983 and the TCA.⁴

A. Section 1983

Section 1983 is a remedial provision. It provides that:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress ....⁵

To obtain remedies pursuant to § 1983, a plaintiff must first establish a federal "right."⁶ Once a plaintiff satisfies the initial burden of proving he has a federal statutory right, he creates a rebuttable presumption that he is entitled to § 1983 remedies.⁷ The parties do not dispute the fact that the TCA clearly grants enforceable "rights."⁸ Thus, the only question in this case is whether the City can rebut the presumption that Congress intended § 1983 remedies to be available for TCA violations.

The City can rebut the presumption in favor of § 1983 remedies if it can prove that Congress either expressly or impliedly foreclosed § 1983 remedies.⁹ The TCA's language provides no support for the theory that Congress expressly foreclosed § 1983. Thus, the question further narrows to whether Congress impliedly foreclosed § 1983 remedies.

Congress impliedly forecloses § 1983 remedies when it "creat[es] a comprehensive enforcement scheme that is incompatible with individual enforcement under § 1983."¹⁰ However, the existence of administrative mechanisms to safeguard an individual's interests does not evince the requisite congressional intent.¹¹ In other words, it is not enough that Congress provides procedures by which a plaintiff can enforce his rights under a statute.¹² The City must prove that through the remedies Congress provided in the TCA, it intended to "close the door on § 1983 liability."¹³ We hold that the City has not met this burden.

B. The TCA

Congress enacted the TCA to "promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies."¹⁴ The TCA requires that state and local governments support any denial of "a request to place, construct, or modify personal wireless service facilities ... in writing ... [with] substantial evidence contained in a written record."¹⁵ The TCA also 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 act, commence an action in any court of competent jurisdiction. The court shall hear and decide such action on an expedited basis. Any person adversely affected by an act or failure to act by a State or local government ... may petition the Commission for relief.¹⁶

Thus, the TCA does not explicitly provide for any types of remedies such as damages, injunctions, attorney's fees, or costs. Rather, the TCA only provides a short statute of limitations (30 days), expedited judicial review, and avenues through which a plaintiff can redress TCA violations (an action in any court of competent jurisdiction and permissive ability to petition the Commission). The question is whether the TCA's provisions are so comprehensive that they close the door on § 1983 liability.

C. The TCA Does Not Contain a Comprehensive Remedial Scheme

In the case before us, the TCA provides for a private right of action by allowing aggrieved plaintiffs the right to bring an action in any court of competent jurisdiction, and before the Commission. However, the statute grants no remedies beyond procedural rights. The procedural provisions are insufficient for us to conclude that the TCA contains a comprehensive remedial scheme that closes the door on § 1983 liability.

The cases in which courts have found that Congress implied its intent to foreclose resort to § 1983 remedies presented remedial schemes more comprehensive than, and thus distinguishable from, the TCA. In Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Association,¹⁷ the Supreme Court held that Congress impliedly foreclosed § 1983 remedies because the two rights-creating statutes at issue had "unusually elaborate enforcement provisions."¹⁸ The statutes permitted civil penalties,¹⁹ litigation costs,²⁰ injunctive relief,²¹ and suspensions or revocations.²² Therefore, the Court concluded that "Congress provided precisely the remedies it considered appropriate" and refused to read more into it.²³

In Department of Education v. Katherine D.,²⁴ we held that the underlying statute was sufficiently comprehensive so as to evince Congress's intent to foreclose § 1983 remedies. The underlying statute established an elaborate procedural scheme and provided the reviewing court with authority to grant appropriate relief.²⁵ This court held that the rights granting statute's "complex provisions ... create a comprehensive and exclusive remedial scheme that precludes reliance upon a cause of action under section 1983."²⁶

The TCA differs from both the statutes in Sea Clammers and the statute in Katherine D. because the TCA does not provide for any type of relief. While one may argue that the lack of any damages in the TCA is evidence that Congress impliedly intended to foreclose damages, a better justification for the absence of a remedial provision is that Congress intended to preserve an aggrieved plaintiff's right to invoke § 1983. An implied preservation is consistent with the presumption in favor of § 1983 remedies.²⁷ Thus, in this case, where the TCA contains no remedies at all, we must conclude that Congress did not intend to foreclose § 1983 remedies.

When faced with the same question before us, the Third Circuit in Nextel Partners Inc. v. Kingston Township²⁸ held that the TCA was incompatible with § 1983 and thus foreclosed its remedies.²⁹ The Nextel court concluded that the TCA contained a comprehensive remedial scheme because of its short statute of limitations, expedited review, and judicial jurisdictional provisions.³⁰ The court also concluded that § 1983 and the TCA were incompatible because § 1983 permits attorney's fees, whereas the TCA does not.³¹ Moreover § 1983 has a longer limitations period and does not contain any provision for expeditious reviews.³² Thus, the Third Circuit concluded that § 1983 remedies could not be granted without upsetting the TCA's remedial scheme, and it held that Congress impliedly foreclosed § 1983 remedies.³³

The Third Circuit's reasoning is flawed in several respects. First, the TCA's provisions are not remedial. We can hardly consider the limitations period a...