Saturday, July 19, 2008

Greatest legal citation since "The Case of the Man who was Shot in the Buttocks"

Here, respondents are authorized to bring suit on behalf of the payphone operators, but they have no claim to the recovery. Indeed, their take is not tied to the recovery in any way. Respondents receive their compensation based on the number of payphones and telephone lines operated by their clients, see App. 198, not based on the measure of damages ultimately awarded by a court or paid by petitioners as part of a settlement. Respondents received the assignments only as a result of their willingness to assume the obligation of remitting any recovery to the assignors, the payphone operators. That is, after all, the entire point of the arrangement. The payphone operators assigned their claims to respondents “for purposes of collection,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a; respondents never had any share in the amount collected. The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing. “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).

Sprint Comm. Co. L.P. v. APCC Servs, Inc., 128 S. Ct. 2531, 2550 (2008) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting).

1 comment:

Ann said...

TCFW.