Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 278.0

524US1

Unit: $U84

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

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

233

Stevens, J., dissenting

First, as the Court acknowledges, ante, at 228, the jury’s
ﬁnding precludes a defense based on the provisions of the
tariff that purport to limit petitioner’s liability. Second, and
of greater importance, it determines that the most egregious
tortious conduct was not merely derivative of the contract
violations. Enforcement of respondent’s state-law right to
be free from tortious interference with business relations
does not somehow award respondent an unlawful preference
that should have been speciﬁed in the tariff (presumably in
return for an added fee or higher rate); it instead gives effect
to a generally applicable right that petitioner is required, by
state law, to respect in dealing with all others, customers
and noncustomers alike. Thus, at least some of the tortious
interference occurred independently of the customer-carrier
relationship and would have been actionable even if respond-
ent had never entered into a contract with AT&T.

The Court correctly states that the ﬁled rate doctrine will
pre-empt some tort claims, but we have never before applied
that harsh doctrine to bar relief for tortious conduct with so
little connection to, or effect upon, the relationship governed
by the tariff. To the extent respondent’s tort claim is based
on petitioner’s billing disclosures and slamming practices, it
neither challenges the carrier’s ﬁled rates, as did the anti-
trust claim in Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260
U. S. 156 (1922), nor seeks a special service or privilege of
the sort requested in cases such as Chicago & Alton R. Co.
v. Kirby, 225 U. S. 155 (1912), and Davis v. Cornwell, 264
U. S. 560 (1924). More akin to this case is Nader v. Alle-
gheny Airlines, Inc., 426 U. S. 290, 300 (1976), in which we
held that a common-law tort action for fraudulent misrepre-
sentation against a federally regulated air carrier could “co-
exist” with the Federal Aviation Act. To a limited degree
it may be said that here, as in Nader, “any impact on rates
that may result from the imposition of tort liability or from
practices adopted by a carrier to avoid such liability would
If the Communications Act’s
be merely incidental.”

Ibid.