Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 266.0

524US1

Unit: $U84

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 214 (1998)

221

Opinion of the Court

from April to October 1990, and to obtain the termination
charges that respondent did not pay in 1992.

Throughout the proceedings in District Court, petitioner
argued that respondent’s state-law contract and tort claims
were pre-empted by the ﬁled-tariff requirements of § 203 of
the Act. The Magistrate Judge rejected this argument and
instructed the jury to consider not only the written subscrip-
tion agreements, but also any statements made or documents
furnished before the parties signed the agreements “ ‘if you
ﬁnd that the parties intended that those statements or writ-
ten materials form part of their agreements.’ ” Brief for
Petitioner 18. The Magistrate Judge also instructed the
jury that it could not ﬁnd for respondent on its contract
claims unless it found that petitioner engaged in willful mis-
conduct. He declined to instruct on punitive damages for
the tortious-interference claim. The jury found for respond-
ent on its state-law claims, rejected petitioner’s counter-
claim, and awarded respondent $13 million in lost proﬁts.
The Magistrate Judge reduced the judgment to $1.154 mil-
lion, which represented the lost proﬁts respondent claimed
during the period before it canceled SDN on September 30,
1992; he found that there was no competent evidence for lost
proﬁts after that date. The Court of Appeals, over a dissent
by Judge Brunetti, afﬁrmed the judgment but reversed the
Magistrate Judge’s failure to instruct on punitive damages
and remanded for a trial on that aspect of the case.
108
F. 3d 981 (CA9 1997). We granted certiorari to determine
whether the federal ﬁled-rate requirements of § 203 pre-empt
respondent’s claims.

522 U. S. 1024 (1997).

II

Section 203(a) of the Communications Act requires every
common carrier to ﬁle with the FCC “schedules,” i. e., tariffs,
“showing all charges” and “showing the classiﬁcations, prac-
tices, and regulations affecting such charges.”
47 U. S. C.
§ 203(a). Section 203(c) makes it unlawful for a carrier to