Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-07034/USCOURTS-caDC-04-07034-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 21, 2004 Decided June 28, 2005

No. 04-7034

APCC SERVICES, INC., ET AL.,

APPELLEES

v.

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO.,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with

04-7035

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cv00642)

(No. 99cv00696)

David P. Murray and Edward P. Lazarus argued the cause

for appellants. With them on the briefs were Randy J. Branitsky

and Jeffrey P. Kehne. Clifford J. Zatz entered an appearance.

Roy T. Englert, Jr. argued the cause for appellees. With

him on the brief were Donald J. Russell and Michael W. Ward.

Alyssa M. Campbell, Charles B. Montgomery, Jeffrey J. Ward,

Sean M. Hanifin, Adam Proujansky, Albert H. Kramer, Leon B.

Kellner and Leslie R. Cohen entered appearances.

USCA Case #04-7034 Document #902806 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 1 of 32
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* Chief Judge GINSBURG wrote Sections I, II.A, II.B.1, II.B.3 and

Circuit Judge RANDOLPH wrote Section II.B.2 of the opinion for the

court. Circuit Judge SENTELLE dissents from Section II.Awith respect

to the standing of the plaintiff aggregators but concurs in the

judgment. Chief Judge GINSBURG dissents from Section II.B.2 and

from the judgment.

Joel Marcus, Counsel, Federal Communications

Commission, argued the cause as amicus curiae in support of

appellees. On the brief were John A. Rogovin, General Counsel,

Austin C. Schlick, Deputy General Counsel, John E. Ingle,

Deputy Associate General Counsel, and Laurence N. Bourne,

Counsel.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and SENTELLE and

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

*

Opinion dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge SENTELLE.

Dissenting opinion filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG.

PER CURIAM: In these consolidated appeals, we consider

whether chapter 5 of the Communications Act of 1934, as

amended, 47 U.S.C. §§ 151–615b, creates a private right of

action for an owner or operator of a payphone (hereinafter a

payphone service provider, or a PSP) to recover from an

interexchange carrier (IXC) the compensation for coinless

payphone calls required by a regulation of the Federal

Communications Commission. Before answering that question,

however, we must first decide whether the plaintiffs, as the

assignees of PSPs’ claims against the IXCs, have standing to sue

USCA Case #04-7034 Document #902806 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 2 of 32
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them. We conclude the plaintiffs do have standing but the Act

does not provide them a right to sue in federal court.

I. Background

In 1990 the Congress enacted the Telephone Operator

Consumer Services Improvement Act, Pub. L. No. 101-435, 104

Stat. 986 (codified at 47 U.S.C. § 226), which requires PSPs to

allow consumers to use an access code (e.g., “10-10-220") or a

subscriber 800 number to make a call from a payphone. See 47

U.S.C. § 226(c)(1)(B). Before then, many PSPs had blocked the

use of access codes and 800 numbers because they enabled

customers to “dial around” the PSP’s preselected IXC, with the

result that neither the IXC nor the PSP received any payment for

the call.

In its initial implementation of the Act, the Commission

required IXCs to compensate PSPs only for access code calls,

not for calls to subscriber 800 numbers, see Policies and Rules

Concerning Operator Services Access and Pay Telephone

Compensation, 6 F.C.C.R. 4736 ¶¶ 34, 36 (1991), clarified on

recons., 7 F.C.C.R. 4355 ¶ 50 (1992), but we held that

compensation scheme was not fully consistent with the 1934

Act, 47 U.S.C. § 226(e)(2), and had to be reconsidered. Fla.

Pub.Telecomms.Ass’n, Inc. v. FCC, 54 F.3d 857, 859(D.C.Cir.

1995). Then, in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the

Congress instructed the Commission to devise a new plan that

would “ensure that all payphone service providers are fairly

compensated for each and every completed intrastate and

interstate call using their payphone[s].” 47 U.S.C. §

276(b)(1)(A). After several failed attempts, see Ill. Pub.

Telecomms Ass’n v. FCC, 117 F.3d 555, 558 (D.C. Cir. 1997)

and MCI Telecomms. Corp. v. FCC, 143 F.3d 606, 607 (D.C.

Cir. 1998), the Commission finally crafted such a plan. See Am.

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Pub. Communications Council v. FCC, 215 F.3d 51, 52 (D.C.

Cir. 2000) (upholding the plan). Getting the Commission to

enact a regulation requiring IXCs to compensate them for dialaround calls was only half the battle for the PSPs, however; their

challenge now is to collect.

Most PSPs rely upon “aggregators” to act as intermediaries

between themselves and the several IXCs; an aggregator acting

on behalf of a PSP submits billing information to the IXCs and

pays over to the PSP the monies it receives from the IXCs. The

aggregator charges the PSP a fee based upon the number of

telephone lines that PSP operates. Plaintiff American Public

Communications Council Services (APCCS) is the largest

aggregator, representing more than 1400 PSPs, which in turn

own and operate more than 400,000 payphones nationwide.

APCCS and several other plaintiff aggregators represent

that certain IXCs “have failed to pay the required [dial-around]

compensation for millions of calls placed over several years.”

They sought authorization from their client PSPs to sue IXCs on

the PSPs’ behalf, and agreed to pass back to the PSPs any

amounts they recovered thereby. Each PSP then signed an

“Assignment and Power of Attorney” providing, in relevant part,

that the PSP

assigns, transfers, and sets over to [the aggregator] for

purposes of collection all rights, title and interest of the

[PSP] in the [PSP’s] claims, demands or causes of action

for “Dial-Around Compensation” (“DAC”) due the [PSP]

for periods since October 1, 1997, pursuant to Federal

Communications Commission rules, regulations and orders.

The aggregators, purporting to act “as assignee[s] of the

claims of and attorney[s]-in-fact” for the PSPs, then jointly filed

lawsuits against Sprint, AT&T, and other IXCs, claiming each

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IXC had violated the Commission’s dial-around compensation

regulation. One PSP, Peoples Telephone Company, also

participated in the lawsuits as a co-plaintiff.

AT&T moved to dismiss the cases on the ground the

aggregators lacked standing to sue. The district court initially

agreed and dismissed all the claims of the aggregators, APCCS

v. AT&T Corp., 254 F. Supp. 2d 135, 137 (D.D.C. 2003), but

upon the aggregators’ motion for reconsideration, vacated its

earlier ruling and denied AT&T’s motion. 281 F. Supp. 2d 41,

45 (D.D.C. 2003).

Another IXC, Cable & Wireless, moved to dismiss the

single complaint against it on the grounds that the aggregators

lacked not only standing but also a right of action for dialaround compensation under § 276 of the Act and the

implementing regulation promulgated by the Commission. The

district court denied that motion and permitted the plaintiffs to

amend their complaints to assert that §§ 201(b), 407, and 416(c)

of Title 47 provide alternative grounds for relief. APCCS v.

Cable & Wireless, Inc., 281 F. Supp. 2d 52, 57 (D.D.C. 2003).

(Cable & Wireless thereafter filed for bankruptcy and the case

against it was stayed.) At the instance of Sprint and AT&T, the

district court then certified its orders for interlocutory appeal,

APCCS v. Sprint Communications Co., 297 F. Supp. 2d 90, 101

(D.D.C. 2003); APCCS v. AT&T Corp., 297 F. Supp. 2d 101,

110 (D.D.C. 2003), and we consolidated their appeals.

II. Analysis

Our review is de novo. We assume the factual allegations

in the complaints are true. See Greene v. Dalton, 164 F.3d 671,

674 (D.C. Cir. 1999). Because Article III standing is a

jurisdictional requirement, we begin our analysis there. See

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* Even if the IXCs are correct that the aggregators do not have

standing as assignees, we note that Peoples Telephone Company, a

PSP, and two aggregators, Jaroth, Inc. and NSC Telemanagement,

would still have standing. Jaroth contends it owned a 17% interest in

a PSP at the time the lawsuit was filed, and NSC contends it will

receive 10% of any compensation it collects on behalf of an affiliated

PSP. Part II.A, therefore, deals with the standing only of those

aggregators whose interest in the lawsuit stems solely from an

assignment.

Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83, 94–102

(1998).

A. The Aggregators’ Standing

Sprint and AT&T argue the aggregators lack standing to sue

because they do not have “a concrete personal stake in the

litigation.” As these IXCs see things, the aggregators’ “skeletal

and conditional” assignments from the PSPs are insufficient to

confer standing because they transfer only “bare legal title” to

the claims of the PSPs, that is, the right to sue “for purposes of

collection” but not the right to the recovery. Here the IXCs

point out that the aggregators have promised to return to the

PSPs all the proceeds from the litigation.* Further, they contend

the assignments, notwithstanding their terms, are in fact

“completely revocable” by the PSPs.

 In terms of the “irreducible constitutional minimum”

requirements for standing — injury-in-fact, causation, and

redressability, see Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555,

560 (1992) — the IXCs first argue the aggregators have not

suffered any injury of their own, and the assignments do not

confer upon the aggregators the right to assert the injury of the

PSPs. The IXCs also argue the relief the aggregators seek

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would not redress their purported injury because the aggregators

would not keep any portion of such damages as may be

awarded.

There are some circumstances in which a plaintiff has

standing to sue based upon an injury to someone else. Indeed,

inVermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel.

Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 773 (2000), the Supreme Court stated in

no uncertain terms that “the assignee of a claim has standing to

assert the injury in fact suffered by the assignor.” At the same

time, however, the Court said that the assignee must have a

“concrete private interest in the outcome of the suit” that is

related to the injury asserted. Id. at 772.

Therefore, in order to determine whether the aggregators

have standing, we must first determine the effect of the

assignments, which purport to transfer to them “all rights, title

and interest” in the PSPs’ dial-around compensation claims. We

must then determine whether the aggregators have a stake in the

outcome of the suit, notwithstanding their contractual obligation

to account to the PSPs for any award of damages.

1. The assignments

Sprint and AT&T offer two reasons to believe the

assignments did not transfer the PSPs’ compensation claims to

the aggregators so as to give the aggregators standing to sue.

First, the transferred ownership interest was only “for purposes

of collection.” Second, the assignments were “completely

revocable” by the PSPs.

We need not dwell upon the IXCs’ first argument. The

quoted phrase appears in the following context: “[The PSP]

hereby assigns, transfers and sets over to [the aggregator] for

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purposes of collection all rights, title and interest of [the PSP] in

[the PSP’s] claims, demands or causes of action” for dial-around

compensation. The phrase “for purposes of collection,” which

the IXCs portray as a fatal limitation, we think a mere reflection

of the aggregator’s promise to pass back to the PSP whatever it

is able to collect. Whether that obligation affects the

aggregator’s standing is a distinct question, which we consider

in Part II.A.2 below, but it certainly does not affect the validity

of the assignment of the PSP’s dial-around compensation claim.

The IXCs, therefore, give us no reason to believe the assignment

is anything less than a complete transfer to the aggregator of the

PSP’s dial-around compensation claim.

Equally unavailing is the IXCs’ contention that the

assignments are “completely revocable.” By their terms, the

assignments “may not be revoked without the written consent of

[the aggregator ].” Sprint and AT&T suggest the court should

treat this provision as a mere “formality,” because APCCS sent

to each of its client PSPs a letter stating: “If at any point

APCCS is no longer representing you in the litigation, you will

be able to pursue your claims on your own, should you so

choose.” The possibility that APCCS would no longer represent

a PSP in litigation does nothing, however, to suggest the PSP

could revoke the assignment as long as APCCS continues to

represent the PSP in the litigation. Of course, APCCS itself

could repudiate the assignment and presumably would do so if

it no longer wanted to represent the PSP in the litigation. In any

event, the assignment itself is plain: the PSP may not revoke it

without the consent of the aggregator.

Having rejected both the IXCs’ arguments challenging the

effect of the assignments, we turn to the question whether the

aggregators’ promise to pass along the proceeds of litigation

affects their standing to sue.

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2. Pass back of the proceeds

Sprint and AT&T also argue the aggregators lack standing

because the assignments effectively give them only the right to

sue; the aggregators will reap no direct financial benefit from the

suit. In that respect, Sprint and AT&T argue, the interest of the

aggregators in this case is unlike that of a qui tam relator, whose

standing the Supreme Court upheld in Vermont Agency, 529

U.S. 765. Here, the IXCs argue, the aggregators retain “no

genuine economic interest” in the dial-around compensation

claims as a result of their promises to pay the proceeds to the

PSPs, whereas a qui tam relator benefits from the bounty he

receives if his claim is successful. Id. at 772.

According to the IXCs, this case is better compared to

Connecticut v. Physicians Health Services of Connecticut,Inc.,

287 F.3d 110 (2002), in which the Second Circuit held that the

State of Connecticut lacked standing to assert claims against an

insurance company offering managed care plans to Connecticut

residents. The State claimed standing on the ground that several

plan participants had assigned to the State their right to seek

“appropriate equitable relief with respect to any cause of action

they may have as plan participants or beneficiaries.” Id. at 112.

The Second Circuit concluded that Connecticut did not have a

“concrete private interest in the outcome of the suit” because

“[n]one of the remedies being sought would flow to the State as

assignee.” Id. at 118. The assignments at issue did not “confer

‘actual’ rights or benefits ... on the State. The right to recover

benefits or to seek money damages remain[ed] with the

assignor.” Id. at 115. Therefore, the court held that, “[e]ven if

the assignments are valid as a contractual matter, they ... merely

give the State the right to act as a nominal party.” Id. at 118.

The assignments at issue here, in contrast, transfer to the

assignees the entire interest of the PSPs in their dial-around

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compensation claims, and, as explained in Part II.A.1 above,

there is nothing to suggest the assignments were invalid. As for

the question that remains — whether the aggregators’ promise

to hand over any recovery to the PSPs means the aggregators

have no stake in the case — Physicians Health is not helpful; it

did not address the question whether an assignee that would

otherwise have standing to sue loses its standing when it

obligates itself to give the proceeds of the suit to another.

Still, we are not entirely without guidance. As the district

court observed, the identical issue has arisen under Federal Rule

of Civil Procedure 17(a): “Every action shall be prosecuted in

the name of the real party in interest.” Courts and commentators

agree that, if an assignment properly transfers ownership of a

claim, then the assignee’s interest “is not affected by the parties’

additional agreement that the transferee will be obligated to

account for the proceeds of a suit brought on the claim.”

Advanced Magnetics, Inc. v. Bayfront Partners, Inc., 106 F.3d

11, 17 (2d Cir. 1997); see also Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282,

289 (1939) (legal effect of assignment “was not curtailed by the

recital that the assignment was for purposes of suit and that its

proceeds were to be turned over or accounted for to another”);

JAMES WM. MOORE, ET AL., MOORE’S FEDERAL PRACTICE §

17.11[1][c] (3d ed. 1997) (“The assignee is real party in interest

even though assignee must account to the assignor”); 6A

CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FED. PRAC. &

PROC. § 1545 at 348 (1990) (“[F]ederal courts have held that an

assignee for purposes of collection who holds legal title to the

debt ... is a real party in interest even though the assignee must

account to the assignor for whatever is recovered in the action”).

Sprint and AT&T counter with the observation that Rule

17(a) and the requirement of standing “are governed by different

standards and serve distinct purposes.” That is true enough, as

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* Because we conclude the aggregators have standing as

assignees, we need not consider their alternative claim, which is that

they have associational standing. See Hunt v. Wash. State Apple

Adver. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 344 (1977); Fund Democracy, LLC v.

SEC, 278 F.3d 21, 25 (D.C. Cir. 2002).

far as it goes: Standing depends in part upon elements “clearly

unrelated to the rather simple proposition set out in Rule 17(a),”

FED. PRAC. & PROC. § 1542 at 330. But standing also depends

in part, as does a plaintiff’s status as the real party in interest,

upon having “a personal interest in the controversy,” Whelan v.

Abell, 953 F.2d 663, 672 (D.C. Cir. 1992), and that is the only

requirement at issue in the IXCs’ challenge to the aggregators’

standing in this case.

We see no basis for distinguishing the personal stake

required under Rule 17(a) from the interest required for

standing. What the aggregators have promised to do with any

recovery is irrelevant to their standing — as it would be to their

status as real parties in interest. We need only be satisfied that

the aggregators received a valid assignment of the claims, so

that any damage award will be payable to them in the first

instance. Upon that score the IXCs have cast no doubt.*

B. Private Right of Action

Sprint and AT&T contend that nothing in chapter 5 of the

Communications Act authorizes a PSP to sue an IXC for failure

to pay the dial-around compensation required by the regulation

the Commission promulgated to implement § 276. In

determining whether the Act creates a private right of action, the

court’s task is straightforward: We must “interpret the statute

Congress has passed to determine whether it displays an intent

to create not just a private right but also a private remedy,” for

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“private rights of action to enforce federal law must be created

by Congress.” Alexander v. Sandoval, 532 U.S. 275, 286

(2001).

1. Section 276

Section 276(b)(1) provides in relevant part:

In order to promote competition among payphone service

providers and promote the widespread deployment of

payphone services to the benefit of the general public ... the

Commission shall ... prescribe regulations that—

(A) establish a per call compensation plan to ensure that all

payphone service providers are fairly compensated for each

and every completed intrastate and interstate call using their

payphone.

As the plaintiffs acknowledge, § 276 itself does not create a

private right of action; nor does it hold a common carrier liable

for failing to comply with the requirements of the Act.

According to the plaintiffs, however, those gaps are filed by §§

206 and 207, respectively.

Section 206 provides in relevant part:

In case any common carrier shall do, or cause or permit to

be done, any act, matter, or thing in [chapter 5] prohibited

or declared to be unlawful, or shall omit to do any act,

matter, or thing in [chapter 5] required to be done, such

common carrier shall be liable to the person or persons

injured thereby for the full amount of damages sustained in

consequence of any such violation of the provisions of

[chapter 5].

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And § 207 provides in relevant part:

Any person claiming to be damaged by any common carrier

subject to the provisions of [chapter 5] ... may bring suit for

the recovery of the damages for which such common carrier

may be liable under the provisions of [chapter 5], in any

district court of the United States of competent jurisdiction.

The question, then, is this: According to the allegations of

the complaint, did Sprint and AT&T, which are common

carriers, do something made unlawful by, or fail to do something

required by, § 276? If so, then § 206 makes them liable to any

person injured as a result, and § 207 permits “any person

claiming to be damaged” to sue them in federal court.

The district court reasoned that § 276(b)(1)(A) “confers

upon PSPs a right to be ‘fairly compensated,’” while the

Commission’s regulation “provides the details necessary to

implement” that statutory right — namely, who must

compensate the PSPs, and by how much. 281 F. Supp. at 56.

According to the district court, the regulation “implements the

Congressional mandate ... by specifying what it means to be

‘fairly compensated’; as such, when a common carrier violates

the regulation, it is effectively doing something ‘declared to be

unlawful’ within the meaning of section 206 and is therefore

subject to suit under section 207.” Id.

In Greene v. Sprint Communications Co., 340 F.3d 1047

(2003), another case brought by aggregators against IXCs on

behalf of PSPs, the Ninth Circuit read the same statute quite

differently. That court first observed that § 276 “does not

establish a right to compensation, or to compensation by IXCs.

The statute does not say ‘PSPs shall be entitled to fair

compensation,’ or ‘IXCs shall pay PSPs.’” Viewing the “lack

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of rights-creating language in § 276 [as] crucial,” the court held

that, when an IXC fails to pay a PSP the compensation

prescribed by the Commission, “there is no violation of the Act

to be remedied through the private right of action afforded by §§

206 and 207.” Id. at 1050–52.

We join the Ninth Circuit in holding that § 276 does not

create a right of action for a PSP (or its assignee) to recover dialaround compensation from an IXC. As our sister circuit

observed, the Supreme Court in Sandoval held that § 602 of

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, did not

reflect an intent on the part of the Congress to create a private

right of action specifically because there was no “rights-creating

language” in the statute. 532 U.S. at 288. The same is true of

§ 276 of the Communications Act. That section is by its terms

addressed neither to the rights of PSPs nor to the obligations of

IXCs. Rather, it is “yet a step further removed: It focuses ... on

the agenc[y] that will do the regulating.” Id. Section 276 is

addressed only to “the Commission,” which it directs to “take all

actions necessary ... to ensure that all [PSPs] are fairly

compensated” for the calls they originate.

Nothing in the statute requires the Commission to designate

the IXC as the party responsible for dial-around payment.

Indeed, as the IXCs note, the Commission identified the caller

and the recipient as possible payors, and in fact it considered a

“caller pays” scheme before eventually concluding that a

“carrier pays” scheme was more practical. See Notice of

Proposed Rulemaking, Implementation of the Pay Telephone

Reclassification and Compensation Provisions of the

TelecommunicationsAct of 1996, 11 F.C.C.R. 6716 ¶24(1996);

see also Greene, 340 F.3d at 1051 n.3 (discussing alternative

schemes the Commission considered).

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Because the IXCs are not regulated by § 276, there is no

way in which they could have violated that provision. They may

have violated a regulation implementing § 276, but § 206 makes

a common carrier liable only for violating chapter 5 itself — not

for a violating a regulation issued by the Commission pursuant

to chapter 5. Because it is not a violation of § 276 for an IXC to

fail to pay dial-around compensation to a PSP, the plaintiffs do

not have a right of action, based upon that section, against the

IXCs.

2. Section 201(b)

Plaintiffs contend that even if they cannot rely on § 276, a

common carrier’s failure to comply with the Commission’s

regulations violates § 201(b) of the Act, which in turn triggers

the provisions (§§ 206 and 207) allowing suit in federal court.

Section 201(b) provides that any “charge, practice,

classification, or regulation that is unjust or unreasonable is

declared to be unlawful.” A common carrier’s failure to

compensate PSPs for dial-around calls, plaintiffs argue, is a

“practice” that is “unjust or unreasonable,” and therefore

“unlawful” under the Act.

At the heart of plaintiffs’ argument is the notion that it is

inherently an unreasonable practice, within the meaning of

§ 201(b), to violate a Commission regulation. That reading

would transform § 201(b) into a catchall provision, converting

any common carrier’s violation of a Commission order or

regulation into a violation of the Act actionable in federal court.

This result is not plainly evident from the text of the Act, and

nothing suggests that Congress intended its words to have such

a sweeping effect.

It is important to keep in mind that the question here is not

so much whether there is a private right of action, but where --

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directly in district court, or in the Commission. This is different

from Sandoval, in which the alternative to a right of action in

court was no action anywhere. Still Sandoval has something to

say about the issue facing us, if only in dicta: “[W]hen a statute

has provided a general authorization for private enforcement of

regulations, it may perhaps be correct that the intent displayed

in each regulation can determine whether or not it is privately

enforceable.” 532 U.S. at 291.

Here, the body of the FCC’s 1999 “Order” said not a word

about § 201(b). All we see is boilerplate in the ordering clause,

and in the clause identifying the authority for Part 64 of the

rules, citing a list of sections including “201.” (This is in

marked contrast to the treatment of § 276, which the

Commission mentioned throughout as the source of its

authority.) It cannot be that the mere citation of § 201 displays

-- in Sandoval’s words -- an intent that the regulation setting the

compensation level should be privately enforceable in court.

Still less can it be that the mere citation of § 201 is entitled to

Chevron deference as the agency’s authoritative interpretation

of § 201(b). The dissent’s quotation of the following statement

from Sandoval is therefore inapposite: a “Congress that intends

the statute to be enforced through a private cause of action

intends the authoritative interpretation of the statute to be so

enforced as well.” 532 U.S. at 284. There was no authoritative

interpretation of § 201(b) in this case. For all we know, the

Commission in 1999 never even thought about suits directly in

district court. Certainly the body of the Order itself gave no clue

that it did so. In fact, in some of the paragraphs talking about

the PSPs compensating the carriers for overpayments, the

assumption appears to be that collection actions will be before

the Commission (as indeed they must be in an any action by a

carrier against a PSP for not making a refund). See, e.g., In re

Implementation of the Pay Telephone Reclassification and

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Compensation Provisions of the Telecommunications Act of

1996, 14 F.C.C.R. 2545 ¶¶ 195-99 (1999).

A court should be reluctant to put words in the

Commission’s mouth -- here, the words “unjust and

unreasonable.” The Commission never, in its 1999 Order,

specified that a carrier’s failure to pay was of this magnitude.

Given the potential consequences to judicial dockets of the

Commission’s making that finding, we should require a clear

statement (and analysis) by the agency. What the Commission

meant by citing § 201 at the end of its Order is anyone’s guess.

If the Order itself indicated that the Commission expected

payphone providers to be able to collect in judicial actions that

would be another matter. But nothing in the Order so indicates

and as stated above, there is at least a suggestion that the

Commission expected collection actions to be administrative.

See, e.g., Ascom Communications, Inc. v. Sprint

Communications, Inc., 15 F.C.C.R. 3223, 3237 (2000)

(adjudicating a claim against Sprint for a violation of § 201(b)).

The dissent also invokes our decision in MCI

Telecommunications Corp. v. FCC, 59 F.3d 1407 (D.C. Cir.

1995), but the holding of that case is too narrow to be of any

help in this case. MCI, as well as the line of precedent on which

it relied, did not involve Commission prescriptions in general,

but rather referred specifically to ratemaking under § 205. Id. at

1414. The Commission’s ratemaking power is expressly

defined as the authority “to determine and prescribe what will be

the just and reasonable charge.” 47 U.S.C. § 205(a) (emphasis

added). It is one thing to hold that when Congress instructs the

Commission to set a “just and reasonable” rate for common

carriers, their noncompliance with the rate will be considered

“unjust and unreasonable”; it is quite another to extend that

reasoning to encompass all Commission regulations governing

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18

common carriers. In addition, MCI involved claims brought

before the Commission -- not in a federal district court. When

MCI is viewed in the new light of Sandoval, its value as a

precedent in this case is diminished still further.

We do not say that the Commission has no power to

interpret § 201(b) to encompass violations of its rules, and

thereby to create private rights of action in courts when

previously there were none. We do say the Commission did not

attempt to exercise any such power here. Plaintiffs therefore

cannot proceed under § 201(b).

3. Sections 407 and 416(c)

The plaintiffs next look to 28 U.S.C. §§ 407 and 416(c) to

supply the right to sue the IXCs in federal court. Section 407

authorizes a “complainant” to petition the district court for

damages based upon a carrier’s failure “to comply with an order

for the payment of money within the time limit in such order.”

The plaintiffs contend the regulation providing for dial-around

compensation is such an “order.”

In the alternative, the plaintiffs contend § 416(c), read in

conjunction with §§ 206 and 207, gives them a right of action.

That provision states, “It shall be the duty of every person ... to

observe and comply with [every order of the Commission] so

long as the same shall remain in effect.” According to the

plaintiffs, the compensation regulation is also an “order” within

the meaning of § 416(c), and §§ 206 and 207 make the failure to

comply therewith actionable in federal court.

The IXCs argue in response that the regulation at issue is

not an “order” within the meaning of either § 407 or § 416(c)

because that term, as used in those sections, includes only

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19

Commission decisions arising out of an adjudicatory, as opposed

to a rulemaking, proceeding. They argue that to interpret

“order” to include rulemaking decisions makes no sense in light

of § 416(a), which requires that every order be served upon the

carrier’s designated agent, and of § 416(b), which authorizes the

Commission “to suspend or modify its orders upon such notice

and in such manner as it shall deem proper.”

We agree with the IXCs that “order” in §§ 407 and 416(c)

refers only to adjudicatory and not to rulemaking decisions.

Although the Communications Act does not define the term

“order,” the Administrative Procedure Act does: “‘order’ means

the whole or part of a final disposition ... of an agency in a

matter other than a rule making.” 5 U.S.C. § 551(6). We

recognize that the circuits are divided over the question whether

“order” as used in § 401(b), a companion provision to those at

issue here, includes a decision promulgated through rulemaking.

The Ninth Circuit has held that it does, reasoning that “[w]hen

Congress intended the APA’s definition of a term to be

incorporated into the Communications Act, it said so.”

Hawaiian Tel. Co. v. Pub.UtilitiesComm’n of Hawaii, 827 F.2d

1264, 1271 (9th Cir. 1987); see also Alltel Tennessee, Inc. v.

Tennessee Pub. Serv. Comm’n, 913 F.2d 305, 308 (6th Cir.

1990) (following Hawaiian Tel. Co. and citing cases from 4th,

5th, 7th, and 8th Circuits).

We are persuaded otherwise for the reasons laid out at

length by then-Judge Breyer in New England Telephone &

Telegraph Co. v. Public Utilities Commission of Maine, 742

F.2d 1, 4–9 (1st Cir. 1984) (relying in part upon APA definition

of “order” in concluding § 401(b) is limited to “adjudicatory

orders”). We are particularly convinced that, as the First Circuit

said of that provision, making §§ 407 and 416(c) applicable to

Commission regulations would “interfere seriously with the well

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20

established principle that the ‘enforcement’ of the

Communications Act is entrusted primarily to” the FCC, id. at

5, rather than to the district courts.

Further, the plaintiffs’ reading of §§ 407 and 416(c) would

render § 201(b) superfluous: any failure to comply with a

regulation, not only unjust and unreasonable practices, would be

a violation of the Act and therefore actionable under §§ 206 and

207. See AlaskaDep’t of Envtl. Conservation v. EPA, 540 U.S.

461, 489 n.13 (“It is ... a cardinal principle of statutory

construction that a statute ought, upon the whole, be so

construed that ... no clause, sentence, or word shall be

superfluous, void, or insignificant”). And, to those provisions

of § 416 that the IXCs correctly identify as inconsistent with the

plaintiffs’ broad interpretation of “order,” we add § 415(f), the

one year statute of limitations for filing a petition to enforce a

Commission order for the payment of money. If orders included

regulations, then a complainant would be able to seek

enforcement of a regulation only for the first year after it is

promulgated. That simply cannot be.

For these reasons, and because we agree entirely with the

First Circuit’s analysis in New England Telephone and

Telegraph, we reject the plaintiffs’ contention they can sue the

IXCs pursuant to §§ 407 and 416(c).

III. Conclusion

We hold that, as a result of the PSPs’ valid assignment of

their claims to the plaintiff aggregators, the aggregators have

standing to sue the defendant IXCs for failing to pay the PSPs

dial-around compensation as required by the regulation; that the

aggregators have promised to pass back to the PSPs any

recovery from the lawsuit is immaterial for the purpose of

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21

determining their standing. We also hold that none of the

provisions of the Act upon which the plaintiffs rely grants them

the right to sue in federal court to recover dial-around

compensation the IXCs are required by regulation to pay. The

orders of the district court denying the IXCs’ motion to dismiss

are therefore

Reversed.

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1

* As noted by the Court, Maj. Op. at 6 n.*, this discussion only

applies to those plaintiff aggregators that do not own, wholly or in

part, PSPs.

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting

in part: In considering whether the plaintiff aggregators have

standing to sue, I, like the Court, begin with the same basic

question: “We must . . . determine whether the aggregators have

a stake in the outcome of the suit[.]” Maj. Op. at 7. Because I

conclude that most of the aggregators do not have a concrete

private interest in the outcome of this suit, I must respectfully

dissent from Part II.A of the Court’s opinion.*

The PSPs’ assignment of rights to APCC is materially

limited: “‘[The PSP] hereby assigns, transfers, and sets over to

[the aggregator] for purposes of collection all rights, title, and

interest of [the PSP] in [the PSP’s] claims, demands or causes of

action’ for dial-around compensation.” What the Court sees as

“a mere reflection” of a technical detail not affecting the

substance of the relationship, I see as the first clue that the PSPs,

not the aggregators, would be the only plaintiffs with a real stake

in the outcome of this controversy.

The Supreme Court’s statements on the “irreducible

constitutional minimum” of standing, under Article III, are

straightforward: first and foremost, the plaintiff “must have

suffered an injury in fact – an invasion of a legally protected

interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual

or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical[.]” Lujan v.

Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992) (quotation

marks, footnote, and internal citation omitted). Of course, as

this Court recognizes, the party that actually suffered the injury

in the first instance need not be the party to bring suit; under

Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel.

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2

Stevens, an assignee of the injured party’s claim may have

standing to sue. 529 U.S. 765, 771-74 (2000).

The doctrine of assignee standing does not wholly erase the

basic requirements of standing, however. There are

“assignments,” and then there are assignments. Only an

assignment that gives the assignee an actual interest in the

recovery is sufficient for standing.

The assignee standing doctrine recognized by the Supreme

Court (and cited by this Court, Maj. Op. at 7) clearly refers to an

actual assignment of an interest that secures a portion of the

recovery. See Vermont Agency, 529 U.S. at 773 (“The FCA can

reasonably be regarded as effecting a partial assignment of the

Government’s damages claim.”). The cases cited in Vermont

Agency as exemplifying “assignee standing” reflect this fact.

See Poller v.ColumbiaBroadcastingSystem,Inc.,284 F.2d 599,

602 (D.C. Cir. 1960), rev’d, 368 U.S. 464, 465 (1962) (plaintiff

in antitrust suit was assignee of all of the assets of the dissolved

corporation (of which he was previously the sole shareholder));

Hazeltine Research, Inc. v. Automatic Radio Mfg. Co., 77 F.

Supp. 493, 495 (D. Mass. 1948) (plaintiff in patent license suit

was assignee of parent corporation’s right to grant licenses

under certain patents), aff’d, 176 F.2d 799 (1st Cir. 1949), aff’d,

339 U.S. 827 (1950); Manhattan Trust Co. v. Sioux City& N. R.

Co., 65 F. 559, 568 (N.D. Iowa 1895) (intervenor assignee in

suit at equity was entitled to redeem securities pledged by

assignor to third party, upon assignee’s payment of the loan

proceeds to that third party), aff’d sub nom. Hubbard v. Tod, 76

F. 905 (8th Cir. 1896), aff’d, 171 U.S. 474 (1898); Vimar

Seguros y Reaseguros, S.A. v. M/V Sky Reefer, 515 U.S. 528,

531 (1995) (plaintiff in contract dispute was subrogated pro

tanto because, as injured party’s insurer, it had paid injured

party compensation that it would recover in contract parties’

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3

arbitration); Musick, Peeler & Garrett v. Employers Ins., 508

U.S. 286, 288 (1993) (plaintiff in stock fraud suit was

subrogated because, as injured party’s insurer, it had paid

injured party compensation that it would recover in civil suit).

See also Titus v. Wallick, 306 U.S. 282, 286 (1939), quoted in

Maj. Op. at 10 (plaintiff assignee did have to account for the

proceeds of the recovery and turn over the proceeds to the

assignor, but assignor was obligated, under the terms of the

assignment, “after paying the expenses of collection, to pay over

one-half of the net recovery to [assignee’s] wife, to discharge

certain indebtedness of [assignee], and to pay the balance to

[assignee].”).

The cases cited in Vermont Agency as exemplifying the

accepted doctrine of “assignee standing” share a common

characteristic noticeably absent from the case before us: in each

of those cases the “assignment” gave the putative plaintiff a

direct share in the recovery. This necessary characteristic

renders those cases consistent with Vermont Agency’s

requirement that the putative plaintiff have “a concrete private

interest in the outcome of the suit” in order to attain standing.

529 U.S. at 772 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 573) (quotation

marks & brackets omitted).

Under Vermont Agency (consistent with its foundation,

Lujan), an assignee plaintiff must both (1) seek to vindicate the

injury to the assignor, and (2) hold an interest “consist[ing] of

obtaining compensation for, or preventing, the violation of a

legally protected right.” Vermont Agency, 529 U.S. at 772-73.

An assignment suffices for such an interest when the assignee

actually receives the benefit of the compensation he receives.

Where the “assignment” relationship is in substance a mere

“agency” relationship such that the “assignee” enjoys no right to

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4

keep a part of the recovery, the irreducible constitutional

minimum of standing is left unsatisfied.

In this case, the putative plaintiffs themselves recognize that

the PSPs’ assignment of rights to aggregators such as APCC

gives them no share in the recovery. “The aggregators’

compensation for billing and collection services is based on the

number of payphones and telephone lines operated by their PSP

clients.” Br. for Plaintiffs-Appellees at 5-6. The aggregators are

a pass-through entity: “Aggregators are intermediaries between

PSPs and IXCs for billing and collection. An aggregator . . .

collects the IXCs’ payments, and distributes those payments to

its PSP clients.” Id. at 5.

The contract cited by the Court reflects the pass-through

nature of the “assignee-assignor” relationship. True, according

to one part of the Agreement, the PSPs “assign[] . . . for

purposes of collection” the interest in Company’s claims. But

we do not interpret the contract’s individual phrases apart from

the rest of the contract; rather, we interpret the agreement “as a

whole,” along with “all writings that are part of the same

transaction.” See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF CONTRACTS §

202(2) (1979). Doubts raised by the “for purposes of collection”

language of that portion of the contract are confirmed by the

Amendment to APCC Services Agency Compensation

Agreement, which notes that, far from taking on the rights and

responsibilities of the PSPs en toto, APCC merely acts as the

“PSP’s exclusive agent for billing and collection.” Amendment

at 1 (emphasis added). APCC does nothing more than “tak[e]

collective action on behalf of PSP and other[s] . . . with similar

claims.” Id. (emphasis added). APCC’s obligations to each PSP

in this additional agreement stretch far beyond mere

“obligat[ion] to account for the proceeds of a suit brought on the

claim.” Maj. Op. at 10.

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5

As noted above, APCC has no actual financial interest in

the recovery. The Amendment confirms this. APCC’s

compensation is determined by a schedule of variable fees

determined by current PSP call volume, not the historical PSP

call volume at issue in the case before us. APCC Services

Agency Compensation Agreement, Schedule A. See also

Sandusky Memo (“To fund the suits, all plaintiffs are being

required to agree to a quarterly assessment of their dial around

compensation on a per call basis.”). True, if APCC’s collection

efforts require APCC to provide “additional services . . . over

and above the services provided pursuant to the Agreement,”

APCC could deduct costs (again, based on current call volume)

from the PSPs’ recoveries, Amendment to APCC Services

Agency Compensation Agreement at 2. But APCC has not

alleged that such deductions are required in the present case, and

we therefore have no occasion to determine whether such

hypothetical deductions would be sufficient for standing. 

The aggregators whose standing I find lacking advance an

alternative theory that they have “associational standing.”

Associational standing requires three elements: first, the

association’s members must otherwise have standing to sue in

their own right; second, the interest the association seeks to

protect must be germane to its purpose; third, neither the claim

asserted nor the relief requested must require the individual

members to participate in the suit. Hunt v. Washington State

Apple Advertising Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977). The

aggregators assert that they meet each requirement and therefore

have associational standing. I disagree.

An aggregator cannot have “associational standing,”

because an aggregator is not an “association.” The assignors of

rights to the aggregators do not thereby become members of the

aggregators. Indeed, the aggregators have no members at all.

USCA Case #04-7034 Document #902806 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 26 of 32
6

“In determining whether an organization that has no members in

the traditional sense may nonetheless assert associational

standing, the question is whether the organization is the

functional equivalent of a traditional membership organization.”

Fund Democracy, LLC v. SEC, 278 F.3d 21, 25 (D.C. Cir.

2002). The aggregators are no such thing. APCC Services, Inc.,

Davel Communications Group, Inc., Data Net Systems, L.L.C.,

Intera Communications Corp., Jaroth, Inc., and NSC

Telemanagement Corp. are all for-profit companies with

contractual relationships with a number of other companies.

One corporation does not become a member of another

corporation by reason of entering into contracts with it. The

aggregators are in no sense “membership organizations.” They

are not even “organizations.” They are incorporated

entities–legal persons–and their clients are no more their

“members” than a law firm’s clients are the firm’s “members.”

In sum, I would respond to the District Court’s certified

question for interlocutory appeal with instructions to dismiss the

complaint with respect to the aggregators that do not own PSPs

either in whole or in part. I therefore dissent, respectfully, from

Part II.A of the opinion of the Court.

USCA Case #04-7034 Document #902806 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 27 of 32
1

GINSBURG, Chief Judge, dissenting with respect to Section

II.B.2 and to the judgment: Because I believe the plaintiffs have

a right to pursue their claims for dial-around compensation

under 47 U.S.C. § 201(b), I would affirm the order of the district

court on that ground.

Section 201(b) provides in relevant part:

All charges, practices, classifications, and regulations for

and in connection with [a] communication service, shall be

just and reasonable, and any such charge, practice,

classification, or regulation that is unjust or unreasonable is

declared to be unlawful .... The Commission may prescribe

such rules and regulations as may be necessary in the public

interest to carry out the provisions of this chapter.

Sections 206 and 207 afford a private right of action based upon

conduct made unlawful by chapter 5 of the Act. Section 201(b),

which is in chapter 5, makes unlawful any “unjust or

unreasonable” practice in connection with a communication

service. It is undisputed that both IXCs and PSPs provide a

“communication service,” and that the Commission is charged

with prescribing rules and regulations interpreting what is just

and reasonable. See 47 U.S.C. § 201(b); AT&T Corp. v. Iowa

Utilities Bd., 525 U.S. 366, 378-79, 397 (1999). I agree with the

plaintiffs that the IXCs’ failure to pay dial-around compensation

constitutes an “unjust and unreasonable practice” as the agency

has interpreted that phrase.

In rejecting the plaintiffs’ argument on that score, the court

frames the question not as whether there is a private right of

action under § 201(b), in conjunction with §§ 206 and 207, but

where such an action is to be heard — in district court or before

the Commission. According to the court, there is no indication

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2

“the Commission in 1999 ... even thought about suits directly in

district court” to recover for a violation of the regulation, slip

op. at 16, and had the Commission made its intention known,

“that would be another matter.” Id. at 16–17. I disagree. It is

not for the Commission to decide whether the plaintiffs may sue

in federal court for a violation of the statute; the Congress has

already made that determination. Section 207 provides that “any

person claiming to be damaged by a common carrier[’s]”

violation of Chapter 5 “may either make complaint to the

Commission ... or may bring suit ... in any district court of the

United States of competent jurisdiction.”

The PSPs allege the IXCs have violated § 201(b) by failing

to pay the sums required by the dial-around compensation

regulation. In promulgating that regulation the Commission

invoked, in addition to § 276(b)(1)(A), its authority under §§

201–205, see In re Implementation of the Pay Telephone

Reclassification and Compensation Provisions of the

Telecommunications Act of 1996, 14 F.C.C.R. 2545 ¶ 232

(1999). In its 2003 Report and Order on the regulation, the

agency made express what had previously been implied, namely,

that “failure to pay in accordance with the Commission’s

payphone rules, such as the rules expressly requiring such

payment that we adopt today, constitutes both a violation of

section 276 and an unjust and unreasonable practice in violation

of section 201(b) of the Act.” Pay Telephone Reclassification

and Compensation Provisions, Report & Order, 18 F.C.C.R.

19975 ¶ 32 (2003). That is clearly an authoritative interpretation

of § 201(b). The court can say “[t]here was no authoritative

interpretation of § 201(b) in this case” only because it makes no

mention of the 2003 Report and Order and fails to note that the

Commission filed an amicus brief in this case advancing the

same position. I disagree that the Commission has not exercised

USCA Case #04-7034 Document #902806 Filed: 06/28/2005 Page 29 of 32
3

its interpretive authority in this case; the question, as I see it, I

whether its interpretation is correct. 

The IXCs and the court claim that, if § 201(b) applies here,

then a common carrier’s violation of any regulation of the

Commission could be said to constitute an unjust and

unreasonable practice. I see no need to go so far, however, in

order to uphold the agency’s interpretation of § 201(b) with

respect to this regulation. Indeed, I would simply reiterate what

this court said a decade ago, namely, that when the Commission

reasonably deems the failure of a common carrier to act in a

specified way to be an unjust and unreasonable practice, a

carrier that fails to comply with the Commission’s prescription

violates the Act. See MCI Telecomms. Corp. v. FCC, 59 F.3d

1407, 1414 (1995) (“We have repeatedly held that a rate-ofreturn prescription has the force of law and that the Commission

may therefore treat a violation of the prescription as a per se

violation of the requirement of the Communications Act that a

common carrier maintain ‘just and reasonable’ rates”). Contrary

to the suggestion of the IXCs, Sandoval does not instruct

otherwise. As the Court there explained, it is “meaningless to

talk about a separate cause of action to enforce” a regulation that

authoritatively construes a statute. 532 U.S. at 284. “A

Congress that intends the statute to be enforced through a private

cause of action intends the authoritative interpretation of the

statute to be so enforced as well.” Id.

I find the IXCs’ other arguments for rejecting the

Commission’s interpretation of § 201(b) equally unpersuasive.

The IXCs maintain that § 201(b) does not apply here because it

“relates [only] to the common carriers’ provision of

communication services to their customers,” but they do not

even purport to ground that limitation in the text. Nor is there

any precedent supporting such a limitation. On the contrary,

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4

both the Commission and this court have previously applied §

201(b) to one carrier’s provision of a communication service to

another carrier. See MCI, 59 F.3d at 1414 (§ 201(b) makes

unlawful carrier’s violation of agency regulation setting

maximum rate-of-return for interstate access); Ascom

Communications, Inc. v. Sprint Communications Co., 15

F.C.C.R. 3223 (2000) (§ 201(b) makes unlawful carrier’s

attempt to collect from PSP for unauthorized and fraudulent

calls placed from PSP’s phones over carrier’s network).

Sprint and AT&T next argue that § 201(b) applies only to

the violation of a regulation, like the one at issue in MCI,

promulgated exclusively pursuant to § 205 of the Act, which

authorizes the Commission to set just and reasonable rates for

services. I disagree — as does the Commission, which has

invoked § 201(b) in several contexts to which § 205 does not

pertain. See, e.g., Ascom, 15 F.C.C.R. at 3227 (“we conclude

that Sprint violated section 201(b) when it charged Ascom for

certain calls for which Ascom was not a customer”); In re

Telephone Number Portability, 18 F.C.C.R. 23697 n.76 (2003)

(“we note that a violation of our number portability rules would

constitute an unjust and unreasonable practice under § 201(b) of

the Act”); Core Communications, Inc. v. SBC Communications

Inc., 18 F.C.C.R. 7568 ¶ 25 (2003) (failure to comply with

merger conditions held an unjust an unreasonable practice). The

IXCs offer no reason to believe the Commission may determine

what constitutes an unjust or unreasonable practice only if, in

doing so, it relies exclusively upon its authority under § 205.

That limitation cannot be found in either § 201(b) or in § 205.

Having rejected each of the arguments raised by the IXCs,

I see no reason to deem unreasonable the Commission’s

determination that it is an unjust and unreasonable practice for

a common carrier to fail to pay PSPs as required by the

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5

regulation. See Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def.

Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 844 (1984). The Congress

delegated to the Commission the responsibility of prescribing

“such rules and regulations as may be necessary in the public

interest to carry out the provisions” of the Act, 47 U.S.C. §

201(b), and then specifically directed the Commission to

establish a compensation plan that “fairly compensates” PSPs

for dial-around calls. 47 U.S.C. § 276(b)(1)(A). The agency in

turn set a rate for dial-around compensation that it believed to be

“fair to both payphone owners and the beneficiaries of those

calls” and to serve the public interest by ensuring “the

widespread deployment of payphones.” 14 F.C.C.R. 2545 ¶ 59.

This court upheld the Commission’s reasoning, so the justness

and reasonableness of the rates is no longer open to challenge.

See APCC v. FCC, 215 F.3d at 52. One would therefore be

hard-pressed to say the Commission acted unreasonably when

it deemed a common carrier’s failure to pay just and reasonable

compensation an unjust and unreasonable practice. See Capital

Network Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 28 F.3d 201, 204 (D.C. Cir. 1994)

(“Congress entrusted the administration of the Communications

Act to the FCC .... Because ‘just,’ ‘unjust,’ ‘reasonable,’ and

‘unreasonable’ are ambiguous statutory terms, this court owes

substantial deference to the interpretation the Commission

accords them”).

Accordingly, I would hold the plaintiffs may sue the

defendant IXCs under § 201(b) for failure to comply with the

Commission’s regulation governing dial-around compensation,

and would affirm the district court’s order on that basis.

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