Sprint Communs. Co., L.P. v. APCC Servs.

Opinion

 [*271]  [***429]  [**2533]   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.

 [**2534] 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 Telecomms., Inc. v. Metrophones Telecomms., 550 U.S. 45, 127 S. Ct. 1513, 167 L. Ed. 2d 422 (2007) (finding  [****6] 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 payphone operators assign their dial-around claims to billing and collection firms called "aggregators" so that, in effect, these  [*272]  aggregators can bring suit on their behalf. See Brief for Respondents 3. Typically, an individual aggregator collects claims from different payphone operators; the aggregator promises to remit to the relevant payphone operator (i.e., the assignor of the claim) any dial-around compensation that is recovered; the aggregator then pursues the claims in court or through settlement negotiations; and the aggregator is paid a fee for this service.

The present litigation involves a group of aggregators who have taken claim assignments from approximately 1,400 payphone operators. Each payphone operator signed an Assignment and Power of Attorney Agreement (Agreement) in which the payphone operator "assigns, transfers and sets over to [the aggregator] for purposes of collection all rights, title and interest of the [payphone operator] in the [payphone  [****7] operator's] claims, demands or causes of action for 'Dial-Around Compensation' . . . due the [payphone operator] for periods since October 1, 1997." App. to Pet. for Cert. 114. The Agreement also "appoints" the aggregator as the payphone operator's "true and lawful attorney-in-fact." Ibid.  The Agreement provides that the aggregator will litigate "in the [payphone operator's] interest." Id., at 115. And the Agreement further stipulates that the assignment of the claims "may not be revoked without the written consent of the [aggregator]." Ibid.  The aggregator and payphone operator then separately agreed that the aggregator would remit all proceeds to the payphone operator and that the payphone operator would pay the aggregator  [***430] for its services (typically via a quarterly charge).

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