Brown

William Brown appeals the district court’s dismissal of his class-action complaint alleging overcharging by telephone service provider MCI WorldCom, Inc. (MCI). The district court held that Brown’s suit was barred by the filed-rate doctrine. The district court further held that Brown’s claim must be resolved in the first instance by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pursuant to the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. We hold that because Brown seeks only to enforce an existing, FCC-approved tariff, he has properly stated a claim under federal law. Accordingly, we reverse and remand.

I

In his amended complaint, Brown alleged that he entered into a two-year contract with MCI to provide telephone service to his two office locations. Each location was to have three phone lines. MCI assigned a separate “account number” to each of the six lines. MCI also assigned a “customer number” to Brown, and then assigned an additional account number to Brown’s customer number at each of the two locations. Brown alleged MCI improperly charged him $10 per month for the account numbers assigned to his two customer numbers, even though there were no associated phone lines. The…