The federal government and the state of Pennsylvania “have an interest in the repairs and structure” of the Inclined Plane funicular that connects the city of Johnstown to the borough of Westmont, said a brief Thursday in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh in which Cambria County opposes Verizon’s June 6 motion to dismiss the county’s complaint (see 2306070030). The county asserts Verizon breached its easement agreement by failing to maintain the telephone equipment along the funicular. The federal government and the state require “any person, company or utility to pay fair market rental for their use of federally funded facilities, and Verizon has refused this obligation under federal law,” said the county. The failure to collect rent or enter into a federally approved lease or maintenance agreement “could negatively impact federal monies used to support the Incline Plane,” it said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lee Dunst for Eastern New York in Central Islip denied without prejudice the Oct. 17 and Nov. 2 motions of 31 residents of Muttontown, New York, to intervene in AT&T’s cell tower dispute with the village, said Dunst’s text-only order Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-05524). The motions were held in abeyance as briefing continued on Muttontown’s motion to dismiss AT&T’s complaint. The motion to dismiss is now “fully submitted” and pending with U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert for a ruling, said Dunst’s order. “As the dismissal motion may end or limit the current case, this ruling may impact the pending intervention motion,” it said. It’s therefore “appropriate for the court to exercise its inherent power to dismiss the intervention motions without prejudice” as a reasonable response to the problems and needs confronting the court's fair administration of justice, it said. As further grounds for the denial, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “recently upheld the dismissal of intervention motions in a factually similar case,” said Dunst’s order. The 2nd Circuit said the Eastern District of 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 (see 2306160025). “This recent decision may require the proposed intervenors to revise their current motions” in the Muttontown case said Dunst’s order. It’s therefore “most efficient for the current motions to be dismissed without prejudice,” it said. That the current intervention motions and supporting papers exceed 700 pages is another factor that warrants denial, it said. The court finds that these “bloated filings violate the letter and spirit” of Local Rule 7.1(a)(3), it said. “Subject to the decision by Judge Seybert on the pending dismissal motion, the proposed intervenors may file a pre-motion letter request” consistent with Dunst’s order, it said. AT&T contends the village unlawfully denied its cell tower application, and the residents sought to intervene on the grounds they didn’t believe the village best represented their property interests (see 2211030048).
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.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Kato Crews for Colorado in Denver set an Aug. 14 telephone scheduling conference for 10:30 a.m. MDT in American Tower’s breach of contract lawsuit against SpeedConnect, said the judge’s text-only order Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-01336). American Tower alleges SpeedConnect, provider of wireless internet services to small towns and rural communities in Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Montana and South Dakota, owes it and 13 of its subsidiaries more than $2.89 million in unpaid rent and license fees (see 2305300003). The allegedly unpaid fees are from 60 license agreements that enabled SpeedConnect to install and operate telecommunications equipment on multiple cell towers owned and operated by American Tower.
Denco Construction caused more than $23,000 in damages to Crown Castle’s underground telecom cable in July 2019 when excavating with mechanized equipment in Cape Coral, Florida, alleged Crown Castle in a negligence complaint Friday (docket 362023CC003651A001CH) in 20th Judicial Circuit Court in Lee County, Florida. Crown Castle’s cable “constitutes movable property, for which Crown Castle has the right of peaceable, undisturbed possession,” said the complaint. Denco “interfered with said possession when it knowingly and intentionally excavated” without maintaining “due clearance” of the cable, it said. The complaint accuses Denco of failing to excavate “in a careful and prudent manner based on accepted engineering and construction practices” as required by Florida law. Denco didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday.
The U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh designated the dispute between Verizon and Cambria County, Pennsylvania, for placement in its alternative dispute resolution program, said a notice Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-00108). The county’s lawsuit alleges Verizon is leaving in disrepair many portions of the telephone facilities and conduit under its control along a funicular connecting the city of Johnstown to the borough of Westmont, in breach of its easement agreement (see 2306020001). Verizon contends that the county’s “true reason” for bringing its lawsuit is to extract rental payments from Verizon for its continued use of the easement (see 2306070030).
Charter Communications’ negligence when attaching a cable to an Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative’s utility pole led to a broken pole and a subsequent power outage that affected 1,000 OTEC customers and caused over $8,600 in damage, alleged a Friday complaint (docket 23-cv-23236) in Oregon Circuit Court in Baker. OTEC and Charter entered a license agreement in August 2000, under which Charter can attach cables to OTEC’s poles under certain terms, including keeping them in “thorough repair.” On June 15, Charter failed to maintain a cable by allowing it to have less than 15 feet, 6 inches of clearance, and a truck and trailer hooked the cable, causing the pole to break, the complaint said. The height of the truck and trailer that snagged the cable was 13.2 feet tall, it said. The utility incurred costs of making repairs, replacing the pole and restoring electrical service, it said. OTEC claims breach of contract and negligence and seeks damages of $8,923, which includes interest.
Plaintiff Olcan III Properties’ second amended complaint against defendant Global Tower has “sufficient detail” to survive Global Tower’s motion to dismiss, said Olcan’s memorandum of law Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-02456) in U.S. District Court for Maryland in Baltimore. Olcan’s amended complaint alleges Global Tower’s use of an easement to access the tower on the rooftop of a building that Olcan owns caused Olcan “to incur repair costs and to lose rents and profits” (see 2211140050). It seeks $75,000 in damages for breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and public nuisance. Global Tower’s motion to dismiss said Olcan “neglected its property for years, failing to conduct the routine upkeep and care required to maintain the building” (see 2302010046). Olcan “baldly asserts it has suffered harm, but does not specifically identify the harm or how Global Tower caused it,” said the motion. Olcan’s second amended complaint describes the damages to the building that Global Tower caused, said the memorandum in opposition. The installation, removal, maintenance and repair of Global Tower’s cell towers “caused damage to the roof and the apartment and commercial units as well as the infrastructure,” said the memorandum: “These actions are breaches of the agreements set forth herein.”
The city of Roswell, Georgia, posed two dozen questions to T-Mobile Thursday about the current process it uses to evaluate the need for a cell tower, and how that process differs from the one in place when the city rejected T-Mobile’s cell tower application in 2017. Thursday’s notice (docket 1:10-cv-01464) conformed to the first deadline on the schedule in the June 2 order signed by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg for Northern Georgia in Atlanta aimed toward continuation of a September 2018 evidentiary hearing on the parties’ motions for summary judgment. After releasing her March 17 opinion and order saying the FCC’s September 2018 small-cells declaratory ruling can’t be applied retroactively to Roswell’s 2017 denial of T-Mobile’s cell tower application (see 2303210036), Totenberg asked the parties to confer about the most efficient way to continue the nearly four-year-old evidentiary hearing. The schedule she adopted from their proposed order was the result. Among the other questions Roswell posed to T-Mobile: (1) What has the carrier done to “identify potential alternative cell sites” for the proposed tower since September 2018?; (2) What are the current standards that T-Mobile uses to define necessary capacity, throughput speed, signal strength, and signal quality, and how do they differ from the standards used when T-Mobile originally submitted its cell tower application in 2017?; (3) What's the average number of connected users that can currently be accommodated at each bandwidth frequency in the area of the proposed tower?; and (4) Did T-Mobile procure any new frequencies, bandwidth or access to towers or alternative structures located in Roswell as the result of the 2020 Sprint merger? Following T-Mobile’s written request for information from Roswell, also due Thursday, the parties have until July 14 to respond, said Totenberg’s order.
Cambria County, Pennsylvania, wrongly alleges in its complaint that many portions of the telephone facilities and conduit in an easement under Verizon’s control along the Inclined Plane funicular connecting the city of Johnstown to the borough of Westmont are in disrepair (see 2306020001), said Verizon’s memorandum Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-00108) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh in support of its motion to dismiss. Verizon “is committed to maintaining its facilities along the Inclined Plane and has and will continue to make such repairs as are necessary,” it said. But the county’s “true reason” for bringing its lawsuit is to force Verizon to pay a fair-market rent for its continued use of the easement “for which it has already bargained and provided sufficient consideration, and which remains valid and binding,” it said. All of the county’s “asserted causes of action fail as a matter of law,” it said. Plaintiffs allege in Count I that Verizon breached the subject easement agreement by failing to “maintain” its facilities within the easement. The easement agreement “conveys to Verizon the right -- and not the obligation -- to maintain its facilities,” it said. “Nowhere does the agreement say that Verizon has a duty to make the repairs which could be breached or that an alleged failure negates Verizon’s easement rights as defined in the agreement,” it said. The county “improperly and inexplicably” seeks an award of damages for the nonexistent breach and for the court to rewrite the agreement and order additional payments from Verizon “not originally bargained for and not in any way associated with the purported breach,” it said. The county not only failed to state a claim for breach of contract, but also seeks a form of relief “that fails as a matter of law,” it said.