Sprint Communs. Co., L.P. v. Apcc Servs. (554 U.S. 269)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 23, 2008 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 554 U.S. 269 · 128 S. Ct. 2531
- Decided
- June 23, 2008
- Term
- October Term 2007
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The question before us is whether an assignee of a legal claim for money owed has standing to pursue that claim in federal court, even when the assignee has promised to remit the proceeds of the litigation to the assignor. Because history and precedent make clear that such an assignee has long been permitted to bring suit, we conclude that the assignee does have standing. I When a payphone customer makes a long-distance call with an access code or 1-800 number issued by a long-distance communications carrier, the customer pays the carrier (which completes that call), but not the payphone operator (which connects that call to the carrier in the first place). In these circumstances, the long-distance carrier is required to compensate the payphone operator for the customer’s call. See 47 U. S. C. § 226; 47 CFR § 64.1300 (2007). The payphone operator can sue the long-distance carrier in court for any compensation that the carrier fails to pay for these “dial-around” calls. And many have done so. See Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc. v. Metrophones Telecommunications, Inc., 550 U. S. 45 (2007) (finding that the Communications Act of 1934 authorizes such suits). Because litigation is expensive, because the evidentiary demands of a single suit are often great, and because the resulting monetary recovery is often small, many…
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