Cite as: 511 U. S. 431 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
be measured by its actual damages from having been charged the higher rate as compared to a reasonable one. 264 U. S., at 424-426.8
Unlike the shippers in the "technical defect" cases, the shipper here could not determine the carrier's rates, since under the regulations, distance tariffs are incomplete once the carrier's participation in the Mileage Guide has been canceled by the agent's filing. See 49 CFR §§ 1312.4(d), 1312.10(a), 1312.30 (1993). We are dealing not with a complete tariff subject to some blemish independently remediable, but with an incomplete tariff insufficient to support a reliable calculation of charges. Security Services, however, questions the distinction by arguing that a shipper is unlikely to search for the list of participating carriers and to determine from the agent's supplemental tariffs that a carrier's participation has been canceled. Rather, a shipper is likely only to follow the reference in the carrier's tariff to the HGCB Mileage Guide, and can fully calculate the applicable charges. But the likelihood or unlikelihood of a shipper's actually reading all the applicable tariffs is simply irrelevant, for carriers and shippers alike are charged with constructive notice of tariff filings, Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Carl, 227 U. S. 639, 653 (1913); Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U. S., at 266, and the fact that shippers may take shortcuts through the filings cannot convert an incomplete tariff into a complete one. In sum, a tariff that refers to another tariff for essential information, which tariff in turn states that the carrier may not refer to it, does not provide the "adequate notice" of rates to be charged that our "technical defect" cases require.
8 See also Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Cisco Oil Mill, 204 U. S. 449 (1907) (Tariff rates filed with ICC and furnished to freight officers of railroad are legally operative despite railroad's failure to post two copies in each railroad depot); Genstar Chemical Ltd. v. ICC, 665 F. 2d 1304, 1309 (CADC 1981) ("[T]he 'error' in the tariff was certainly not apparent on its face"), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 905 (1982).
443
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