Cite as: 524 U. S. 214 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
36156 (CA9), p. 33. Respondent can no more obtain unlawful preferences under the cloak of a tort claim than it can by contract. "The rights as defined by the tariff cannot be varied or enlarged by either contract or tort of the carrier." Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 163 (1922); see also Maislin, 497 U. S., at 126.
The saving clause of the Communications Act, § 414, contrary to respondent's reading of it, does not dictate a different result. Section 414 copies the saving clause of the ICA, and we have long held that the latter preserves only those rights that are not inconsistent with the statutory filed-tariff requirements. Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491, 507 (1913). A claim for services that constitute unlawful preferences or that directly conflict with the tariff—the basis for both the tort and contract claims here—cannot be "saved" under § 414. "Th[e saving] clause . . . cannot in reason be construed as continuing in [customers] a common law
for our review ("Whether . . . the Ninth Circuit improperly allowed state-law contract and tort claims based on a common carrier's failure to honor an alleged side agreement to give its customer better service than called for by the carrier's tariff") nor was raised by respondent as an alternative ground in support of the judgment. Nor has respondent ever suggested the need for a remand, even though the petition for certiorari sought not merely reversal, but summary reversal. In its brief on the merits, respondent argued that the intentional tort claim was not pre-empted because AT&T's willful breach of its contractual commitments was not protected by the filed rate doctrine. There was no hint of an argument that, even if that willful breach could not form the basis for an action, other alleged intentional acts sufficed to support the judgment below. At no point has respondent disputed the Magistrate Judge's finding that the tort claim is derivative of the contract claim, or the Ninth Circuit's description of its tort claim as based on the fact that "because COT had promised certain benefits of SDN to its customers, and because AT&T provided competing services, any violation of AT&T's contractual duties constituted tortious interference with COT's relationship with its customers." 108 F. 3d 981, 988 (1997). Contrary to the dissent's assertion, we have no obligation to search the record for the existence of a nonjurisdictional point not presented, and to consider a disposition (remand instead of reversal) not suggested by either side.
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