Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide in this case whether an individual may enforce the limitations on local zoning authority set forth in § 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act of 1934, 47. U. S. C. § 332(c)(7), through an action under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
I
Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA), 110 Stat. 56, to promote competition and higher quality in American telecommunications services and to “encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies.” Ibid. One of the means by which it sought to accomplish these goals was reduction of the impediments imposed by local governments upon the installation of facilities for wireless communications, such as antenna towers. To this end, the TCA amended the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, to include § 332(c)(7), which imposes specific limitations on the traditional authority of state and local governments to regulate the location, construction, and modification of such facilities, 110 Stat. 151, codified at 47 U. S. C.
“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.”
Respondent Mark Abrams owns a home in a low-density, residential neighborhood in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, California (City). His property is located at a high elevation, near the peak of the Rancho Palos Verdes Peninsula. Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams,
In 1989, respondent obtained a permit from the City to construct a 52.5-foot antenna on his property for amateur use.
In 1998, respondent sought permission to construct a second antenna tower. In the course of investigating that application, the City learned that respondent was using his antennas to provide a commercial service, in violation of a City ordinance requiring a “conditional-use permit” from the City Planning Commission (Commission) for commercial antenna use. See Commission Resolution No. 2000-12 (“A Resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes Denying With Prejudice Conditional Use Permit No. 207 for the Proposed Commercial Use of Existing Antennae on an Existing Antenna Support Structure, Located at 44 Oceanaire Drive in the Del Cerro Neighborhood”), App. to Pet. for Cert. 54a. On suit by the City, Los Angeles County Superior Court enjoined respondent from using the antennas for a commercial purpose. Rancho Palos Verdes, supra, at 373,
Two weeks later, in July 1999, respondent applied to the Commission for the requisite conditional-use permit. The application drew strong opposition from several of respondent’s neighbors. The Commission conducted two hearings and accepted written evidence, after which it denied the application. Id., at 54a-63a. The Commission explained that granting respondent permission to operate commercially “would perpetuate ... adverse visual impacts” from respondent’s existing antennas and establish precedent for similar projects in residential areas in the future. Id., at 57a. The
On August 24, 2000, respondent filed this action against the City in the District Court for the Central District of California, alleging, as relevant, that denial of the use permit violated the limitations placed on the City’s zoning authority by § 332(c)(7). In particular, respondent charged that the City’s action discriminated against the mobile relay services he sought to provide, § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(I), effectively prohibited the provision of mobile relay services, § 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II), and was not supported by substantial evidence in the record, § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii). App. to Pet. for Cert. 17a. Respondent sought injunctive relief under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v), and money damages and attorney’s fees under 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1988. Plaintiff/Petitioner’s Brief Re: Remedies and Damages, Case No. 00-09071-SVW (RNBx) (CD Cal., Feb. 25, 2002), App. to Reply Brief for Petitioners 2a-7a.
Notwithstanding § 332(c)(7)(B)(v)’s direction that courts “hear and decide” actions “on an expedited basis,” the District Court did not act on respondent’s complaint until January 9,2002,16 months after filing; it concluded that the City’s denial of a conditional-use permit was not supported by substantial evidence. App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a-26a. The court explained that the City could not rest its denial on esthetic concerns, since the antennas in question were already in existence and would remain in place whatever the disposition of the permit application. Id., at 23a-24a. Nor, the court said, could the City reasonably base its decision on the fear of setting precedent for the location of commercial antennas in residential areas, since adverse impacts from
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed on the latter point, and remanded for determination of money damages and attorney’s fees.
II
A
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof 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.”
In Maine v. Thiboutot,
Our subsequent cases have made clear, however, that §1983 does not provide an avenue for relief every time a state actor violates a federal law. As a threshold matter, the text of § 1983 permits the enforcement of “rights, not the
Even after this showing, “there is only a rebuttable presumption that the right is enforceable under § 1983.” Blessing v. Freestone,
B.
The City conceded below, and neither the City nor the Government as amicus disputes here, that § 332(c)(7) creates individually enforceable rights; we assume, arguendo, that this is so. The critical question, then, is whether Congress
The provision of an express, private means of redress in the statute itself is ordinarily an indication that Congress did not intend to leave open a more expansive remedy under § 1983. As we have said in a different setting, “[t]he express provision of one method of enforcing a substantive rule suggests that Congress intended to preclude others.” Alexander v. Sandoval,
We have found § 1983 unavailable to remedy violations of federal statutory rights in two eases: Sea Clammers and Smith. Both of those decisions rested upon the existence of more restrictive remedies provided in the violated statute itself. See Smith, supra, at 1011-1012 (recognizing a § 1983 action “would . . . render superfluous most of the detailed procedural protections outlined in the statute”); Sea Clam-mers, supra, at 20 (“[W]hen a state official is alleged to have violated a federal statute which provides its own comprehensive enforcement scheme, the requirements of that enforcement procedure may not be bypassed by bringing suit directly under §1983” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Moreover, in all of the cases in which we have held that § 1983 is available for violation of a federal statute, we have emphasized that the statute at issue, in contrast to those in Sea Clammers and Smith, did not provide a private judicial remedy (or, in most of the cases, even a private administrative remedy) for the rights violated. See Blessing, supra, at 348 (“Unlike the federal programs at issue in [Sea Clammers and Smith], Title IV-D contains no private remedy— either judicial or administrative — through which aggrieved persons can seek redress”); Livadas v. Bradshaw, 512 U. S.
The Government as amicus, joined by the City, urges us to hold that the availability of a private judicial remedy is not merely indicative of, but conclusively establishes, a congressional intent to preclude § 1983 relief. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17; Brief for Petitioners 35. We decline to do so. The ordinary inference that the remedy provided in the statute is exclusive can surely be overcome by textual indication, express or implicit, that the remedy is to complement, rather than supplant, § 1983.
There is, however, no such indication in the TCA, which adds no remedies to those available under § 1983, and limits relief in ways that § 1983 does not. Judicial review of zoning decisions under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v) must be sought within 30 days after the governmental entity has taken “final action,” and, once the action is filed, the court must “hear and decide” it “on an expedited basis.” § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). The remedies available, moreover, perhaps do not include compensatory damages (the lower courts are seemingly in disagreement on
Respondent’s only response to the attorney’s-fees point is that it is a “policy argumen[t],” properly left to Congress. Brief for Respondent 35-36. That response assumes, however, that Congress’s refusal to attach attorney’s fees to the remedy that it created in the TCA does not itself represent a congressional choice. Sea Clammers and Smith adopt the opposite assumption — that limitations upon the remedy contained in the statute are deliberate and are not to be evaded through § 1983. See Smith,
Respondent disputes that a § 1983 action to enforce § 332(c)(7)(B) would enjoy a longer statute of limitations than an action under § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). He argues that the rule adopted in Wilson v. Garcia,
Respondent also argues that, if 28 U. S. C. § 1658 (2000 ed., Supp. II), rather than Wilson, applies to his § 1983 action, see n. 5, supra, § 1658’s 4-year statute of limitations is inapplicable. This is so, he claims, because § 332(c)(7)(B)(v)’s requirement that actions be filed within 30 days falls within § 1658’s prefatory clause, “Except as otherwise provided by law.”
C
The Ninth Circuit based its conclusion that Congress intended to permit plaintiffs to proceed under § 1983, in part, on the TCA’s so-called “saving clause,” TCA § 601(c)(1), 110 Stat. 143, note following 47 U. S. C. § 152.
*126 “(1) No IMPLIED EFFECT — This Act and the aménd-ments made by this Act shall not be construed to modify, impair, or supersede Federal, State, or local law unless expressly so provided in such Act or amendments.”
The Court of Appeals took this to be an express statement of Congress’s intent not to preclude an action under § 1983, reasoning that to do so would be to “ ‘impair’ ” the operation of that section. Id., at 1100.
We do not think this an apt assessment of what “impair[ment]” consists of. Construing § 332(c)(7), as we do, to create rights that may be enforced only through the statute’s express remedy leaves the pre-TCA operation of § 1983 entirely unaffected. Indeed, the crux of our holding is that § 332(c)(7) has no effect on §1983 whatsoever: The rights § 332(c)(7) created may not be enforced under § 1983 and, conversely, the claims available under § 1983 prior to the enactment of the TCA continue to be available after its enactment. The saving clause of the TCA does not require a court to go further and permit enforcement under § 1983 of the TCA’s substantive standards. To apply to the present case what we said with regard to a different statute: “The right [Abrams] claims under [§ 332(c)(7)] did not even arguably exist before the passage of [the TCA]. The only question here, therefore, is whether the rights created by [the TCA] may be asserted within the remedial framework of [§ 1983].” Great American Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Novotny,
This interpretation of the saving clause is consistent with Sea Clammers. Saving clauses attached to the statutes at issue in that case provided that the statutes should not be interpreted to “ ‘restrict any right which any person ... may have under any statute or common law to seek enforcement of any . . . standard or limitation or to seek any other relief (including relief against the Administrator or a State agency).’ 33 U. S. C. § 1365(e).”
* * *
Enforcement of § 332(c)(7) through § 1983 would distort the scheme of expedited judicial review and limited remedies created by § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). We therefore hold that the TCA — by providing a judicial remedy different from § 1983 in § 332(c)(7) itself — precluded resort to § 1983. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Notes
The City’s approval specified a maximum height of 40 feet, but, because of an administrative error, the permit itself authorized respondent to construct a tower 12.5 feet taller.
This does not contravene the canon against implied repeal, see Posadas v. National City Bank,
Compare Primeco Personal Communications, Ltd. Partnership v. Mequon,
Absent express provision to the contrary, litigants must bear their own costs. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society,
The statute of limitations for a § 1983 claim is generally the applicable state-law period for personal-injury torts. Wilson v. Garcia,
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1658(a) provides as follows:
“Except as otherwise provided by law, a civil action arising under an Act of Congress enacted after the date of the enactment of this section may not be commenced later than 4 years after the cause of action accrues.”
Concurrence Opinion
with whom Justice O’Connor, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg join, concurring.
I agree with the Court. It wisely rejects the Government’s proposed rule that the availability of a private judicial remedy “conclusively establishes ... a congressional intent to preclude [Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C.] §1983 relief.” Ante, at 122 (emphasis added). The statute books are too many, federal laws too diverse, and their purposes too complex for any legal formula to provide more than general guidance. Cf. Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe,
. Context here, for example, makes clear that Congress saw a national problem, namely, an “inconsistent and, at times,
The statute requires local zoning boards, for example, to address permit applications “within a reasonable period of time”; the boards must maintain a “written record” and give reasons for denials “in writing.” 47 U. S. C. §§332(c)(7)(B)(ii), (iii). Those “adversely affected” by “Anal action” of a state or local government (including their “failure to act”) may obtain judicial review provided they file their review action within 30 days. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). The reviewing court must “hear and decide such action on an expedited basis.” Ibid. And the court must determine, among other things, whether a zoning board’s decision denying a permit is supported by “substantial evidence.” § 332(c)(7)(B)(iii).
This procedural and judicial review scheme resembles that governing many federal agency decisions. See H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-458, at 208 (“The phrase ‘substantial evidence contained in a written record’ is the traditional standard used for judicial review of agency actions”). Section 1983 suits, however, differ considerably from ordinary review of agency action. The former involve plenary judicial evaluation of asserted rights deprivations; the latter involves deferential consideration of matters within an agency’s expertise. And, in my view, to permit § 1983 action» here would under
For these reasons, and for those set forth by the- Court, I agree that Congress, in this statute, intended its judicial remedy as an exclusive remedy. In particular, Congress intended that remedy to foreclose — not to supplement— § 1983 relief.
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in the judgment.
When a federal statute creates a new right but fails to specify whether plaintiffs may or may not recover damages or attorney’s fees, we must fill the gap in the statute’s text by examining all relevant evidence that sheds light on the intent of the enacting Congress. The inquiry varies from statute to statute. Sometimes the question is whether, despite its silence, Congress intended us to recognize an implied cause of action. See, e.g., Cannon v. University of Chicago,
In this case the statute’s text, structure, and history all provide convincing evidence that Congress intended the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TCA) to operate as a comprehensive and exclusive remedial scheme. The structure of the statute appears fundamentally incompatible with the
Two flaws in the Court’s approach, however, persuade me to write separately. First, I do not believe that the Court has properly acknowledged the strength of our normal presumption that Congress intended to preserve, rather than preclude, the availability of § 1983 as a remedy for the enforcement of federal statutory rights. Title 42 U. S. C.
Second, the Court incorrectly assumes that the legislative history of the statute is totally irrelevant. This is contrary to nearly every case we have decided in this area of law, all of which have surveyed, or at least acknowledged, the available legislative history or lack thereof. See, e. g., Wright,
Additionally, as a general matter of statutory interpretation, Congress’ failure to discuss an issue during prolonged legislative deliberations may itself be probative. As The
For these reasons, I concur in the Court’s judgment.
The evidence supporting this conclusion is substantial. It includes, inter alia, the fact that the private remedy specified in 47 U. S. C. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v) requires all enforcement actions to be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction “within 30 days after such action or failure to act.” Once a plaintiff brings such an action, the statute requires the court both to “hear and decide” the case “on an expedited basis.” Ibid. As the Court properly notes, ante, at 122-123, the TCA’s streamlined and expedited scheme for resolving telecommunication zoning disputes is fundamentally incompatible with the applicable limitations periods that generally govern § 1983 litigation, see, e. g., Wilson v. Garcia,