Commercial – Internet service provider’s suit against T-Mobile is dismissed

Where an internet service provider alleged that T-Mobile caused signal interference throughout the ISP’s network, its suit was dismissed. It had elected its remedies by pursuing a complaint before the Federal Communications Commission, its remaining Communications Act claims were preempted and its tortious interference claim failed as a matter of law.

Background

Bloosurf LLC provides internet and phone services. After customers complained about slow and unreliable service, Bloosurf investigated and discovered “mysterious” and “persistent” signal interference throughout its network, which it claims is caused by T-Mobile USA Inc. and one of its subsidiaries.

Bloosurf filed an informal complaint asking the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, to intervene. The FCC dismissed the complaint. Bloosurf’s motion for reconsideration remains pending. Bloosurf then sued T-Mobile in federal district court, which granted T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

Jurisdiction

T-Mobile asserts the district court lacked “subject matter jurisdiction” to hear Bloosurf’s network interference claims because the FCC has “exclusive jurisdiction” over such matters. The court disagrees. Bloosurf ‘s Communications Act claim arises under federal law. In addition, the complaint seeks far more than $75,000, and Bloosurf shares no citizenship with any defendant.

T-Mobile cites no provision of the Communications Act that strips Article III courts of authority to adjudicate network interference claims, nor does it identify any case saying Congress has done so. To the contrary, Congress has expressly authorized plaintiffs to bring Communications Act lawsuits in federal court in at least some circumstances.

Instead, T-Mobile points to a line of cases addressing a different question: whether (and if so, when) states and state agencies have the power to regulate network interference given the FCC’s predominant role in that area. But all the federal court decisions T-Mobile cites are Article VI preemption cases, not Article III jurisdiction ones.

Count One

The district court correctly dismissed Count One, which asserts that T-Mobile violated 47 U.S.C. § 333, because the Communications Act’s election-of-remedies provision bars any otherwise-valid claim. Nearly 18 months before filing this lawsuit,
Bloosurf asked the FCC to “investigate” T-Mobile’s conduct and “require” T-Mobile
to do certain things. At least three other circuits have held this sort of ‘informal’ complaint triggers the election-of-remedies provision, and Bloosurf does not contend otherwise.

Bloosurf’s response—that there is no election-of-remedies problem because it sought different remedies from the FCC and the district court—gets both the facts and the law wrong. As to the facts: Despite
Bloosurf’s attempts to claim otherwise, it asked both the FCC and the district court for damages. As to the law: § 207 does not permit a party to bring parallel proceedings for the same violation simply because that party seeks different remedies from the FCC and a federal court.

Preemption

Counts Three-Six all boil down to an assertion that T-Mobile should have acted differently in operating its transmissions. Allowing state law to regulate
T-Mobile’s conduct in those ways would burden T-Mobile’s provision of wireless service coverage. For that reason, § 332 preempts Counts Three-Six.

Bloosurf insists these counts are saved by the Communications Act’s general saving clause, which reads “Nothing in this chapter contained shall in any way abridge or alter the remedies now existing at common law or by statute, but the provisions of this chapter are in addition to such remedies.” But the Supreme Court has held that provision “preserves only those [state-law] rights that are not inconsistent with” other provisions of the Communications Act.

Bloosurf also asserts that because federal law already requires T-Mobile to “stay in its lane” (that is, broadcast only on its own frequencies) state tort claims that merely require the same thing “supplement[]” rather than “conflict with” the Communications Act. But the Act does not merely oust states from regulating market entry in ways that are different from or inconsistent with federal law. Rather, it provides that “no State or local government shall have any authority to regulate” such matters at all.

Tortious interference

The district court applied Maryland‘s well-established test for malicious or wrongful interference with an economic relationship and dismissed Count Two for failure to state a claim under that test. Bloosurf now argues the district court used “the wrong test.” But Bloosurf urged the district court to use the very test Bloosurf now insists was the wrong one, and Bloosurf never modified or took back that suggestion before the district court.

Affirmed.

Bloosurf LLC v. T-Mobile USA Inc., Case No. 25-1412, March 19, 2026. 4th Cir. (Heytens), from DMD at Baltimore (Bennett). John Chapman Petersen for Appellant. Charles McCloud for Appellee. VLW 026-2-097. 13 pp.

Full-Text Opinion

VLW 026-2-097
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