Judge Dismisses Bloosurf’s Complaint to Block Sale of EBS Licenses to T-Mobile
U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett for Maryland in Baltimore, in a July 21 memorandum opinion, granted the motion of three colleges to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction a complaint by Bloosurf, a wireless internet provider to low-income, rural communities…
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on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The company sued to block the schools from selling their FCC-approved educational broadcast service licenses to T-Mobile, a direct competitor. The judge denied as moot Bloosurf’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The dismissal is without prejudice, with leave to amend the complaint by Aug. 21. The “overriding issue” in the motion to dismiss from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Wor-Wic Community College and Salisbury University is whether Bloosurf’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief “arise under federal law,” said the opinion. Bloosurf doesn’t precisely indicate what cause of action it asserts as the basis for its requests for injunctive and declaratory relief, and its complaint raises contractual claims but doesn’t “present a federal cause of action,” it said. Throughout the complaint, Bloosurf describes the case as an effort to prevent the termination of the EBS lease, and to withhold consent to the T-Mobile sale, it said. “To the extent Bloosurf invokes FCC regulations, it does so only as one of the grounds on which it withheld its consent to the transfer and continues to object to the proposed sale, not as an independent cause of action,” it said. The complaint is “best understood” as seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the basis that the termination of the EBS lease and the sale of the universities’ underlying licenses would violate the lease, it said: “These claims sound in contract, a quintessential field of state law.” Bloosurf argues the federal issue is the “gravamen of the case,” but its complaint “belies this broad assertion,” said the opinion. A “holistic reading” of the complaint suggests Bloosurf “is chiefly concerned about the effect the proposed sale would have on its network, its contracts, and its business,” it said. “In sum,” Bloosurf’s challenge to the proposed sale doesn’t necessarily depend on resolution of a substantial question of federal law, it said. As Bloosurf’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief don’t necessarily raise issues of federal law, “this case falls outside the ambit of this court’s subject matter jurisdiction,” it said.