Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 264

524US1

Unit: $U84

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

219

Opinion of the Court

selected.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 14. Respondent accepted
these terms in writing on October 30, 1989.

By February 1990, it had become apparent that the de-
mand for SDN exceeded petitioner’s expectations—largely
because of the switchless resellers attracted to the service.
Petitioner could not ﬁll the volumes of switched-access or-
ders as rapidly as dedicated access orders, or as quickly
as petitioner’s personnel had predicted. Accordingly, Ms.
Kisor notiﬁed respondent that it would take up to 90 days to
add new locations after the initial SDN was established.
She suggested placing respondent’s customers with another
AT&T service, the Multilocation Calling Plan (MLCP), until
they could be placed on SDN. Respondent agreed to this,
and ordered MLCP. Again, respondent signed a letter con-
ﬁrming that MLCP “ ‘is provided under the terms and condi-
tions stated in AT&T’s Tariff F. C. C. Nos. 1 and 2.’ ” Brief
for Appellant in Nos. 94–36116, 94–36156 (CA9), p. 15.

Ms. Kisor informed respondent that its initial SDN net-
work was functioning in April 1990. At that point, respond-
ent elected to increase to a larger SDN volume commitment
In placing this
in order to qualify for a larger discount.
order, respondent signed a form stating that the SDN serv-
ice “ ‘WILL BE GOVERNED BY THE RATES AND
TERMS AND CONDITIONS IN THE APPROPRIATE
AT&T TARIFFS.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 14–15. Respond-
ent then began reselling SDN to its own customers and plac-
ing orders with petitioner that required petitioner to treat
respondent’s customers as if they were new locations on a
corporate SDN.

Almost from the outset, respondent experienced problems
with the network, including delays in provisioning (the ﬁlling
of orders) and in billing. An additional billing problem was
especially damaging to respondent: respondent’s customers
received bills reﬂecting 100% of the discount instead of the
50% respondent selected. These problems continued, and in
October 1990, they led respondent to switch to network bill-