La. City Denies It Violated TCA When It Rejected AT&T’s Cell Tower Application

AT&T’s Dec. 18 complaint challenging the “unlawful denial” by Jennings, Louisiana, of AT&T’s application to build an 80-foot wireless telecommunications facility within the city’s jurisdiction (see 2312190003) fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted, said the city’s answer Monday (docket 2:23-cv-01769) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles. All the city’s actions or inactions with respect to AT&T “were carried out in the good faith performance of official duties by elected or appointed officers and employees” of Jennings, and under “a good faith and reasonable belief that such actions were lawful and constitutional,” it said. The city is therefore “immune from the purported claims and causes of actions” set forth in AT&T’s complaint, it said. Jennings affirmatively pleads the statute of limitations to the extent that AT&T’s complaint wasn’t timely filed under the Telecommunications Act, it said. The city also denies violating any provisions of the TCA’s Section 332, it said. That’s because the statute “defers to state and local governments concerning placement, construction, and modification of personal wireless service facilities,” and because all the city’s actions “were consistent with the provisions of that statute,” Jennings said.