District Court Rightfully Denied Motion to Intervene in Small-Cells Case: 2nd Circuit

The U.S. District Court for Eastern New York didn’t abuse its discretion when it denied the motion of eight residents of Kings Point, New York, to intervene in Extenet’s infrastructure lawsuit against the village, said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s summary order Friday (22-1265). Extenet alleged Kings Point unlawfully denied its application for a special exception permit for 31 small-cell installations to improve wireless service in the village. The residents argue intervention was necessary to protect their individual properties from the purported aesthetic and economic impacts of the proposed small-cell installations. The district court denied the residents’ motion for permissive intervention and intervention as of right, and the 2nd Circuit said it was right to do so. Contrary to the residents’ contention, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion in concluding that the village could “adequately represent” the residents’ interests in this action, said the summary order. As such, the 2nd Circuit can’t conclude the district court erred in denying the residents’ motion to intervene under either Rule 24(a) or Rule 24(b), it said. The district court’s determination on the adequacy of the village’s representation is “alone sufficient to justify the denial” of the residents’ motion to intervene, it said. The 2nd Circuit need not reach the residents’ other claims of error, it said. Those claims include their argument that the district court erred in concluding that their aesthetic interests weren’t “legally protectable interests for the purposes of their motion to intervene under Rule 24(a),” it said. The residents also raise various arguments about how the district court “abused its discretion in concluding that their interests would be adequately protected” by the village, it said: “None is persuasive.” In the same June 2022 order denying the residents' motion to intervene, the district court granted Extenet's motion for a preliminary injunction ordering the village to approve its special exception permit for the small-cells installations.