Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 275.0

524US1

Unit: $U84

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AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO.
v. CENTRAL OFFICE TELEPHONE, INC.
Rehnquist, C. J., concurring

tage in that it is not one open to all others in the same
situation.”

Id., at 165.

In Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156,
163 (1922), the question was not whether a separate contract
could be enforced, but rather whether petitioner could bring
an antitrust complaint challenging the rate that respondents
had ﬁled in their tariff. The Court ruled that he could not:

“The legal rights of shipper as against carrier in respect
to a rate are measured by the published tariff. Unless
and until suspended or set aside, this rate is made, for all
purposes, the legal rate, as between carrier and shipper.
The rights as deﬁned by the tariff cannot be varied or
enlarged by either contract or tort of the carrier.”
Ibid. (emphasis added).

In this case respondent’s contract claim seeks to enforce
side arrangements that it made with petitioner. Respond-
ent contends that petitioner promised to provide it with
services on terms different from those listed in the tariff.
As the above cases make clear, the ﬁled rate doctrine bars
such a claim. Respondent’s tort claim is entirely derivative
of its contractual claim, and the Court is therefore correct in
concluding that the doctrine also bars the tort claim.

The tariff does not govern, however, the entirety of the
relationship between the common carrier and its customers.
For example, it does not affect whatever duties state law
might impose on petitioner to refrain from intentionally in-
terfering with respondent’s relationships with its customers
by means other than failing to honor unenforceable side
agreements, or to refrain from engaging in slander or libel,
or to satisfy other contractual obligations. The ﬁled rate
doctrine’s purpose is to ensure that the ﬁled rates are the
exclusive source of the terms and conditions by which the
common carrier provides to its customers the services cov-
It does not serve as a shield against all
ered by the tariff.