Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 272

524US1

Unit: $U84

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

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

227

Opinion of the Court

36156 (CA9), p. 33. Respondent can no more obtain unlaw-
ful preferences under the cloak of a tort claim than it can by
contract.
“The rights as deﬁned by the tariff cannot be var-
ied or enlarged by either contract or tort of the carrier.”
Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 163
(1922); see also Maislin, 497 U. S., at 126.

The saving clause of the Communications Act, § 414, con-
trary to respondent’s reading of it, does not dictate a differ-
ent result. Section 414 copies the saving clause of the ICA,
and we have long held that the latter preserves only those
rights that are not inconsistent with the statutory ﬁled-tariff
requirements. Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S.
491, 507 (1913). A claim for services that constitute unlaw-
ful preferences or that directly conﬂict with the tariff—the
basis for both the tort and contract claims here—cannot be
“saved” under § 414.
“Th[e saving] clause . . . cannot in rea-
son be construed as continuing in [customers] a common law

for our review (“Whether . . . the Ninth Circuit improperly allowed 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 ”) nor was raised by respondent as an alternative
ground in support of the judgment. Nor has respondent ever suggested
the need for a remand, even though the petition for certiorari sought not
merely reversal, but summary reversal.
In its brief on the merits, re-
spondent argued that the intentional tort claim was not pre-empted be-
cause AT&T’s willful breach of its contractual commitments was not pro-
tected by the ﬁled rate doctrine. There was no hint of an argument that,
even if that willful breach could not form the basis for an action, other
alleged intentional acts sufﬁced to support the judgment below. At no
point has respondent disputed the Magistrate Judge’s ﬁnding that the tort
claim is derivative of the contract claim, or the Ninth Circuit’s description
of its tort claim as based on the fact that “because COT had promised
certain beneﬁts of SDN to its customers, and because AT&T provided
competing services, any violation of AT&T’s contractual duties constituted
108
tortious interference with COT’s relationship with its customers.”
F. 3d 981, 988 (1997). Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, we have no
obligation to search the record for the existence of a nonjurisdictional
point not presented, and to consider a disposition (remand instead of rever-
sal) not suggested by either side.