Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 279

524US1

Unit: $U84

[09-06-00 20:39:07] PAGES PGT: OPIN

234

AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO.
v. CENTRAL OFFICE TELEPHONE, INC.
Stevens, J., dissenting

saving clause 3 means anything, it preserves state-law reme-
dies against carriers on facts such as these.

The District Court and the Court of Appeals never consid-
ered whether respondent’s tort claim is wholly derivative of
its contract claim for purposes of the ﬁled rate doctrine,
because those courts mistakenly believed that even the con-
tract claim was not covered by the doctrine. On my own
reading of the record, I think it clear that a portion of the
tort claim is not pre-empted. The Court should therefore
remand the case for a new trial rather than ordering judg-
ment outright for AT&T.4

Although the Court holds broadly that respondent’s tort
claim is totally barred, it declines to consider whether a por-
tion of the claim might survive on remand because this issue
was not part of the question presented in the petition for
certiorari and was not speciﬁcally raised by respondent.
Ante, at 226–227, n. 2. The latter point is wholly irrelevant,
precisely because of the scope of the question presented.
The only question that we agreed to decide was whether the
ﬁled rate doctrine pre-empts “state-law contract and tort
claims based on a common carrier’s failure to honor an
alleged side agreement to give its customer better service
than called for by the carrier’s tariff.” Pet. for Cert. i. The
Court answers that legal question, and then decides an
additional, factual one: whether respondent’s tort claim is
“based on” AT&T’s “failure to honor an alleged side agree-
ment,” and thus is “wholly derivative” of the pre-empted
In resolving that issue, the Court cannot
contract claim.

3 “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.”

47 U. S. C. § 414.

4 Beyond the billing disclosures and slamming, respondent asserts that
AT&T also misappropriated customer information from respondent’s con-
ﬁdential data base. Brief for Respondent 4. That basis for a tort remedy,
if supported by sufﬁcient evidence, would also appear not to be pre-empted
by the ﬁled rate doctrine.