Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

U.S. South Communications, Inc. ("U.S.South"), an issuer of prepaid calling cards, appealed from the judgment entered against it and in favor of GCB Communications, Inc. and Lake Country Communications, Inc. (collectively "GCB"), a payphone service provider ("PSP"), where the district court held that U.S. South owed GCB dial-around compensation for disputed calls "regardless of whether the proper Flex-ANI digits were transmitted." After addressing threshold issues, the court determined that the issue was whether U.S. South was required to pay GCB for completed coinless payphone calls, dial-around calls, if U.S. South did not receive coding digits that would identify the calls as GCB payphone calls. The court concluded that GCB, through its local exchange carrier ("LEC"), must assure that the Flex-ANI was transmitted in the system. Therefore, because the district court did not make findings on this issue because it did not deem it relevant, the question of whether the Flex-ANI codes for the disputed calls were sent into the system by GCB and its LEC must be decided. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings.