Pac. Lightnet, Inc. v. Time Warner Telecom, Inc.

• Decision Date: 18 December 2013
• Docket Number: No. SCWC–28948.,SCWC–28948.
• Citation: 318 P.3d 97,131 Hawai'i 257
• Parties: PACIFIC LIGHTNET, INC., Petitioner/Plaintiff–Appellant/Cross–Appellee v. TIME WARNER TELECOM, INC., and Time Warner Telecom of Hawai‘i L.P., Respondents/Defendants–Appellees/Cross–Appellants.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

131 Hawai'i 257

318 P.3d 97

PACIFIC LIGHTNET, INC., Petitioner/Plaintiff–Appellant/Cross–Appellee

v.TIME WARNER TELECOM, INC., and Time Warner Telecom of Hawai‘i L.P., Respondents/Defendants–Appellees/Cross–Appellants.

No. SCWC–28948.

Supreme Court of Hawai‘i.

Dec. 18, 2013.

Margery S. Bronster, and Rex Y. Fujichaku, Honolulu, for petitioner.

J. Douglas Ing, Brian Kang, and Emi L.M. Kaimuloa, Honolulu, for respondent.

RECKTENWALD, C.J., NAKAYAMA, ACOBA, McKENNA, and POLLACK, JJ.

Opinion of the Court by ACOBA, J.

We hold that, first, the circuit court of the first circuit (the court) erred in invoking the primary jurisdiction doctrine to dismiss the instant case. Second, inasmuch as the filed-rate doctrine applies, the court erred in failing to instruct the jury that Petitioner/ Plaintiff–Appellant/Cross–Appellee Wavecom Solutions Corporation, formerly known as Pacific Lightnet, Inc. (PLNI) could not recover for any claims involving charges not filed within 120 days of receipt of billing, in accordance with the Hawai‘i Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filed tariffs.

Accordingly, we affirm in part and vacate in part the February 21, 2013 judgment of the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA), filed pursuant to its January 25, 2013 Memorandum Opinion, vacate the court's October 23, 2007 order granting the Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction filed by Respondent/Defendants–Appellees/Cross–Appellants Time Warner Telecom, Inc. and Time Warner Telecom of Hawai‘i L.P. (Time Warner) on September 4, 2007, and vacate in part the court's December 12, 2007 judgment.

I. Background

The instant appeal involves a dispute between two telecommunications carriers. Time Warner is a telecommunications carrier that provides voice, internet and data services. As part of these services, Time Warner provides "call termination services," which is the ability for customers of one carrier to make and complete calls to customers of Time Warner. The dispute in this case relates to call termination services that were allegedly provided by Time Warner.

The claims in this case consist of two separate billing disputes between the carriers over the call termination services. The two claims are called collectively, "Feature Group D claims." First, PLNI claims that Time Warner owes it a credit for certain past charges. Second, PLNI contests certain charges by Time Warner for services that it allegedly never received. The background facts relevant to these two claims follow.

A. GST's Sale to Time Warner

GST Telecommunication, Inc. (GST) was a telecommunications company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 17, 2000. In September 2000, Time Warner agreed to purchase certain assets of GST in bankruptcy, including GST's mainland telephone network. The acquisition was made pursuant to an asset purchase agreement between Time Warner and GST, dated September 11, 2000. According to Time Warner, the asset purchase agreement gave it "all Carrier Identification Codes (a.k.a. CICs)." CICs are used to identify telephone calls associated with a certain carrier.¹

Time Warner did not purchase all of GST's assets, but rather, GST retained for later sale the assets of GST Hawaii's operations, including all rights to what the asset purchase agreement called "Feature Group D" accounts. Time Warner maintains that although it acquired the Carrier Identification Codes from GST, GST recognized that it was still responsible to pay Time Warner the outstanding balance under certain CICs for services that GST customers had previously received.

B. GST's Sale to PLNI

In March 2001, TM Communications Hawai‘i (TM) agreed to purchase, inter alia , the remainder of the GST assets in Hawai‘i that were not previously sold to Time Warner. PLNI is a subsidiary of TM.² The asset purchase agreement between GST and TM, dated March 9, 2001 stated that TM had purchased:

[A]ll of the [GST's] rights, title, and interests in and to the Business, including, without limitation, in and to all the assets, properties, rights, accounts receivable and Assumed Contracts of [GST] and claims of [GST] related to the Business....

C. Customer Investigation Forms and Dispute Submissions Filed with Time Warner

On September 18, 2001, PLNI and/or its predecessor GST Hawai‘i filed a "Customer Investigation Form" with Time Warner requesting that Time Warner investigate and resolve PLNI's claim for disputed invoice amounts relating to "Feature Group D" services. The Customer Investigation Form listed the "Disputed Amount[s]" as $30,760.16, "All Invoices $200,000[,]" and "All Invoices[.]"

D. Assignment by TM to PLNI

TM assigned its rights in the asset purchase agreement with GST to PLNI in October 2001. According to Time Warner, under PLNI's assumed asset purchase agreement, PLNI was informed of Time Warner's purchase of GST assets, as well as which assets were covered by PLNI's purchase. Time Warner states that Section 1.2 of the asset purchase agreement "provided that [PLNI] was not acquiring any assets that had been conveyed to [Time Warner]," and that this meant that "excluded from PLNI's purchase were ‘all Carrier Identification Codes' that Time Warner had acquired." Time Warner asserts that, pursuant to the plain language of PLNI's assumed asset purchase agreement, PLNI did not acquire CICs 5756, 5478 or any other Carrier Identification Codes.

E. Time Warner's Alleged Resolution of Dispute with GST

On June 1, 2002, according to Time Warner, Time Warner and GST resolved the billing dispute over pre-October 2001 call termination services received. Time Warner states that, "[b]ased on proper certification from GST, [Time Warner] credited GST's account $327,714.03 for end user taxes that should not have been charged, and GST paid the remaining balance due and owing." Time Warner notes that "as [Time Warner] was still providing transition services for GST under the asset purchase agreement between Time Warner and GST, including housing certain GST divisions [such as] GST's billing services, the notice of the $327,714.03 credit was sent to GST, via Time Warner's street address."

According to Time Warner, on August 7, 2002, any dispute regarding who owned certain Carrier Identification Codes was resolved by GST when it assigned CIC 5478 to PLNI via Time Warner's Consent and Agreement to Assign Service. Time Warner asserts that CIC 5756, as well as all other Carrier Identification Codes remained with Time Warner pursuant to the terms of the original asset purchase agreement executed between GST and Time Warner.

II. Circuit Court Proceedings

A. Pre–Trial Proceedings

On December 30, 2003, PLNI filed a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction in the court against Time Warner, alleging, inter alia, that:

34. On September 18, 2001, [PLNI] filed a dispute on defendants' customer-investigation form for erroneous billings and payments concerning Feature Group D services that defendants never provided to either [PLNI] or GST. As of December 4, 2003, defendants indicated they were still processing this claim, which, according to [PLNI's] calculation, will result in a $230,760.16 credit in [PLNI's] favor.

....

41. [Time Warner] ha[s] wrongfully mis-billed [PLNI] for services defendants never provided, and are liable to [PLNI] for damages in an amount that exceeds $200,000, but which amount will be more precisely proved at trial.

PLNI additionally asked for "money damages based on [Time Warner's] wrongful actions in ... © mis-billing [PLNI] for Feature Group D services [Time Warner] never provided."

On June 22, 2005, PLNI filed with Time Warner the first of another series of Billing Dispute Submissions relating to disputed invoices. Specifically, PLNI claimed that it was billed on several account numbers for Feature Group D services that it did not receive.

On November 13, 2006, PLNI filed its pretrial statement stating, inter alia, that Time Warner "misbilled [PLNI] for other telecommunications services" and that Time Warner was "liable to [PLNI] for damages in an amount that exceeds $200,000." March 20, 2007, at the court's direction, both parties filed motions for summary judgment regarding some of the claims in PLNI's complaint. This did not include the Feature Group D claims. The court entered summary judgment in favor of Time Warner. According to Time Warner, the parties' action then focused on the remaining claims, which at this point Time Warner believed did not include the Feature Group D claims.

On July 16, 2007, Time Warner filed a motion seeking, among other things, dismissal of the Feature Group D claims on the basis that they had been resolved. On July 27, 2007, PLNI filed its opposition, alleging that the Feature Group D claims had not been "satisfactorily resolved." On August 15, 2007, the court issued an order denying Time Warner's motion in part, and allowing PLNI to proceed with its Feature Group D claims.

On August 20, 2007, PLNI submitted to Time Warner a proposed Short Impartial Statement of the Case, which provided, in relevant part that:

[PLNI] asserts claims against [Time Warner] for billing [PLNI] approximately $138,000 to date for a telecommunications switching service called Feature Group D, which [Time Warner] purported to supply to [PLNI], but which [PLNI] has not received from [Time Warner]. [Time Warner] denies having improperly billed [PLNI].

Based on the court's rulings up to this point, PLNI asserted that the only remaining dispute for trial was the Feature Group D claim. On August 27, 2007, Time Warner filed its motion in limine, seeking to exclude evidence regarding elements of the Feature Group D dispute that had not been asserted in the December 30, 2003 complaint and of which [Time Warner] alleged it had not been given adequate notice (Motion in Limine).

On August 30, 2007, Time Warner filed an Answer to [PLNI']s original complaint (Answer). This answer asserted a number of affirmative defenses, including that "[PLNI's] claims are barred by...