Sprint Communications Co. v. APCC Services, Inc.

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2007 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO., L. P., ET AL. v. APCC

SERVICES, INC., ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR

THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 07–552. Argued April 21, 2008—Decided June 23, 2008

A payphone customer making a long-distance call with an access code

or 1–800 number issued by a long-distance carrier pays the carrier

(which completes the call). The carrier then compensates the pay-

phone operator (which connects the call to the carrier in the first

place). The payphone operator can sue the long-distance carrier for

any compensation that the carrier fails to pay for these “dial-around”

calls. Many payphone operators assign their dial-around claims to

billing and collection firms (aggregators) so that, in effect, these ag-

gregators can bring suit on their behalf. A group of aggregators (re-

spondents here) were assigned legal title to the claims of approxi-

mately 1,400 payphone operators. The aggregators separately agreed

to remit all proceeds to those operators, who would then pay the ag-

gregators for their services. After entering into these agreements,

the aggregators filed federal-court lawsuits seeking compensation

from petitioner long-distance carriers. The District Court refused to

dismiss the claims, finding that the aggregators had standing, and

the D.C. Circuit ultimately affirmed.

Held: An assignee of a legal claim for money owed has standing to pur-

sue that claim in federal court, even when the assignee has promised

to remit the proceeds of the litigation to the assignor. Pp. 3–23.

(a) History and precedent show that, for centuries, courts have

found ways to allow assignees to bring suit; where assignment is at

issue, courts—both before and after the founding—have always per-

mitted the party with legal title alone to bring suit; and there is a

strong tradition specifically of suits by assignees for collection. And

while precedents of this Court, Waite v. Santa Cruz, 184 U. S. 302,

Spiller v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 253 U. S. 117, and Titus v. Wal-

2 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Syllabus

lick, 306 U. S. 282, do not conclusively resolve the standing question

here, they offer powerful support for the proposition that suits by as-

signees for collection have long been seen as “amenable” to resolution

by the judicial process, Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment,

523 U. S. 83, 102. Pp. 3–16.

(b) Petitioners offer no convincing reason to depart from the his-

torical tradition of suits by assignees, including assignees for collec-

tion. In any event, the aggregators satisfy the Article III standing

requirements articulated in this Court’s more modern decisions. Pe-

titioners argue that the aggregators have not themselves suffered an

injury and that assignments for collection do not transfer the pay-

phone operators’ injuries. But the operators assigned their claims

lock, stock, and barrel, and precedent makes clear that an assignee

can sue based on his assignor’s injuries. Vermont Agency of Natural

Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U. S. 765. In arguing

that the aggregators cannot satisfy the redressability requirement

because they will remit their recovery to the payphone operators, pe-

titioners misconstrue the nature of the redressability inquiry, which

focuses on whether the injury that a plaintiff alleges is likely to be

redressed through the litigation—not on what the plaintiff ultimately

intends to do with the money recovered. See, e.g., id., at 771. Peti-

tioners’ claim that the assignments constitute nothing more than a

contract for legal services is overstated. There is an important dis-

tinction between simply hiring a lawyer and assigning a claim to a

lawyer. The latter confers a property right (which creditors might at-

tach); the former does not. Finally, as a practical matter, it would be

particularly unwise to abandon history and precedent in resolving

the question here, for any such ruling could be overcome by, e.g., re-

writing the agreement to give the aggregator a tiny portion of the as-

signed claim itself, perhaps only a dollar or two. Pp. 16–20

(c) Petitioners’ reasons for denying prudential standing—that the

aggregators are seeking redress for third parties; that the litigation

represents an effort by the aggregators and payphone operators to

circumvent Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23’s class-action require-

ments; and that practical problems could arise because the aggrega-

tors are suing, e.g., payphone operators may not comply with discov-

ery requests or honor judgments—are unpersuasive. And because

there are no allegations that the assignments were made in bad faith

and because the assignments were made for ordinary business pur-

poses, any other prudential questions need not be considered here.

Pp. 20–23.

489 F. 3d 1249, affirmed.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS,

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 3

Syllabus

KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. ROBERTS, C. J., filed a

dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 07–552

_________________

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L. P., ET AL.,

PETITIONERS v. APCC SERVICES, INC., ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

[June 23, 2008]

JUSTICE BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question before us is whether an assignee of a legal

claim for money owed has standing to pursue that claim in

federal court, even when the assignee has promised to

remit the proceeds of the litigation to the assignor. Be-

cause history and precedent make clear that such an

assignee has long been permitted to bring suit, we con-

clude that the assignee does have standing.

I

When a payphone customer makes a long-distance call

with an access code or 1–800 number issued by a long-

distance communications carrier, the customer pays the

carrier (which completes that call), but not the payphone

operator (which connects that call to the carrier in the first

place). In these circumstances, the long-distance carrier is

required to compensate the payphone operator for the

customer’s call. See 47 U. S. C. §226; 47 CFR §64.1300

(2007). The payphone operator can sue the long-distance

carrier in court for any compensation that the carrier fails

to pay for these “dial-around” calls. And many have done

so. See Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc. v.

2 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Metrophones Telecommunications, Inc., 550 U. S. ___

(2007) (finding that the Communications Act of 1934

authorizes such suits).

Because litigation is expensive, because the evidentiary

demands of a single suit are often great, and because the

resulting monetary recovery is often small, many pay-

phone operators assign their dial-around claims to billing

and collection firms called “aggregators” so that, in effect,

these aggregators can bring suit on their behalf. See Brief

for Respondents 3. Typically, an individual aggregator

collects claims from different payphone operators; the

aggregator promises to remit to the relevant payphone

operator (i.e., the assignor of the claim) any dial-around

compensation that is recovered; the aggregator then pur-

sues the claims in court or through settlement negotia-

tions; and the aggregator is paid a fee for this service.

The present litigation involves a group of aggregators

who have taken claim assignments from approximately

1,400 payphone operators. Each payphone operator

signed an Assignment and Power of Attorney Agreement

(Agreement) in which the payphone operator “assigns,

transfers and sets over to [the aggregator] for purposes of

collection all rights, title and interest of the [payphone

operator] in the [payphone operator’s] claims, demands or

causes of action for ‘Dial-Around Compensation’ . . . due

the [payphone operator] for periods since October 1, 1997.”

App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a. The Agreement also “appoints”

the aggregator as the payphone operator’s “true and law-

ful attorney-in-fact.” Ibid. The Agreement provides that

the aggregator will litigate “in the [payphone operator’s]

interest.” Id., at 115a. And the Agreement further stipu-

lates that the assignment of the claims “may not be re-

voked without the written consent of the [aggregator].”

Ibid. The aggregator and payphone operator then sepa-

rately agreed that the aggregator would remit all proceeds

to the payphone operator and that the payphone operator

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 3

Opinion of the Court

would pay the aggregator for its services (typically via a

quarterly charge).

After signing the agreements, the aggregators (respon-

dents here) filed lawsuits in federal court seeking dial-

around compensation from Sprint, AT&T, and other long-

distance carriers (petitioners here). AT&T moved to dis-

miss the claims, arguing that the aggregators lack stand-

ing to sue under Article III of the Constitution. The Dis-

trict Court initially agreed to dismiss, APCC Servs., Inc. v.

AT&T Corp., 254 F. Supp. 2d 135, 140–141 (DC 2003), but

changed its mind in light of a “long line of cases and legal

treatises that recognize a well-established principle that

assignees for collection purposes are entitled to bring suit

where [as here] the assignments transfer absolute title to

the claims.” APCC Servs., Inc. v. AT&T Corp., 281 F.

Supp. 2d 41, 45 (DC 2003). After consolidating similar

cases, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia Circuit agreed that the aggregators

have standing to sue, but held that the relevant statutes

do not create a private right of action. APCC Servs., Inc.

v. Sprint Communications Co., 418 F. 3d 1238 (2005) (per

curiam). This Court granted the aggregators’ petition for

certiorari on the latter statutory question, vacated the

judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in

light of Global Crossing, supra. APPC Services, Inc. v.

Sprint Communications Co. 550 U. S. ___ (2007). On

remand, the Court of Appeals affirmed the orders of the

District Court allowing the litigation to go forward. 489

F. 3d 1249, 1250 (2007) (per curiam). The long-distance

carriers then asked us to consider the standing question.

We granted certiorari, and we now affirm.

II

We begin with the most basic doctrinal principles: Arti-

cle III, §2, of the Constitution restricts the federal “judicial

Power” to the resolution of “Cases” and “Controversies.”

4 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

That case-or-controversy requirement is satisfied only

where a plaintiff has standing. See, e.g., DaimlerChrysler

Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332 (2006). And in order to have

Article III standing, a plaintiff must adequately establish:

(1) an injury in fact (i.e., a “concrete and particularized”

invasion of a “legally protected interest”); (2) causation

(i.e., a “ ‘fairly . . . trace[able]’ ” connection between the

alleged injury in fact and the alleged conduct of the defen-

dant); and (3) redressability (i.e., it is “ ‘likely’ ” and not

“merely ‘speculative’ ” that the plaintiff’s injury will be

remedied by the relief plaintiff seeks in bringing suit).

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561

(1992) (calling these the “irreducible constitutional mini-

mum” requirements).

In some sense, the aggregators clearly meet these re-

quirements. They base their suit upon a concrete and

particularized “injury in fact,” namely, the carriers’ failure

to pay dial-around compensation. The carriers “caused”

that injury. And the litigation will “redress” that injury—

if the suits are successful, the long-distance carriers will

pay what they owe. The long-distance carriers argue,

however, that the aggregators lack standing because it

was the payphone operators (who are not plaintiffs), not

the aggregators (who are plaintiffs), who were “injured in

fact” and that it is the payphone operators, not the aggre-

gators, whose injuries a legal victory will truly “redress”:

The aggregators, after all, will remit all litigation proceeds

to the payphone operators. Brief for Petitioners 18. Thus,

the question before us is whether, under these circum-

stances, an assignee has standing to pursue the assignor’s

claims for money owed.

We have often said that history and tradition offer a

meaningful guide to the types of cases that Article III

empowers federal courts to consider. See, e.g., Steel Co. v.

Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 102 (1998)

(“We have always taken [the case-or-controversy require-

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 5

Opinion of the Court

ment] to mean cases and controversies of the sort tradi-

tionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process”

(emphasis added)); GTE Sylvania, Inc. v. Consumers

Union of United States, Inc., 445 U. S. 375, 382 (1980)

(“The purpose of the case-or-controversy requirement is to

limit the business of federal courts to questions presented

in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed

as capable of resolution through the judicial process”

(emphasis added and internal quotation marks omitted));

cf. Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 460 (1939) (opinion of

Frankfurter, J.) (in crafting Article III, “the framers . . .

gave merely the outlines of what were to them the familiar

operations of the English judicial system and its manifes-

tations on this side of the ocean before the Union”). Con-

sequently, we here have carefully examined how courts

have historically treated suits by assignors and assignees.

And we have discovered that history and precedent are

clear on the question before us: Assignees of a claim,

including assignees for collection, have long been permit-

ted to bring suit. A clear historical answer at least de-

mands reasons for change. We can find no such reasons

here, and accordingly we conclude that the aggregators

have standing.

A

We must begin with a minor concession. Prior to the

17th century, English law would not have authorized a

suit like this one. But that is because, with only limited

exceptions, English courts refused to recognize assign-

ments at all. See, e.g., Lampet’s Case, 10 Co. Rep. 46b,

48a, 77 Eng. Rep. 994, 997 (K. B. 1612) (stating that “no

possibility, right, title, nor thing in action, shall be

granted or assigned to strangers” (footnote omitted));

Penson & Highbed’s Case, 4 Leo. 99, 74 Eng. Rep. 756

(K. B. 1590) (refusing to recognize the right of an assignee

of a right in contract); see also 9 J. Murray, Corbin on

6 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Contracts §47.3, p. 134 (rev. ed. 2007) (noting that the

King was excepted from the basic rule and could, as a

result, always receive assignments).

Courts then strictly adhered to the rule that a “chose in

action”—an interest in property not immediately reducible

to possession (which, over time, came to include a financial

interest such as a debt, a legal claim for money, or a con-

tractual right)—simply “could not be transferred to an-

other person by the strict rules of the ancient common

law.” See 2 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *442. To per-

mit transfer, the courts feared, would lead to the “multi-

plying of contentions and suits,” Lampet’s Case, supra, at

48a, 77 Eng. Rep., at 997, and would also promote “main-

tenance,” i.e., officious intermeddling with litigation, see

Holdsworth, History of the Treatment of Choses in Action

by the Common Law, 33 Harv. L. Rev. 997, 1006–1009

(1920).

As the 17th century began, however, strict anti-

assignment rules seemed inconsistent with growing com-

mercial needs. And as English commerce and trade ex-

panded, courts began to liberalize the rules that prevented

assignments of choses in action. See 9 Corbin, supra,

§47.3, at 134 (suggesting that the “pragmatic necessities of

trade” induced “evolution of the common law”); Holds-

worth, supra, at 1021–1022 (the “common law” was “in-

duced” to change because of “considerations of mercantile

convenience or necessity”); J. Ames, Lectures on Legal

History 214 (1913) (noting that the “objection of mainte-

nance” yielded to “the modern commercial spirit”). By the

beginning of the 18th century, courts routinely recognized

assignments of equitable (but not legal) interests in a

chose in action: Courts of equity permitted suits by an

assignee who had equitable (but not legal) title. And

courts of law effectively allowed suits either by the as-

signee (who had equitable, but not legal title) or the as-

signor (who had legal, but not equitable title).

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 7

Opinion of the Court

To be more specific, courts of equity would simply per-

mit an assignee with a beneficial interest in a chose in

action to sue in his own name. They might, however,

require the assignee to bring in the assignor as a party to

the action so as to bind him to whatever judgment was

reached. See, e.g., Warmstrey v. Tanfield, 1 Ch. Rep. 29,

21 Eng. Rep. 498 (1628–1629); Fashion v. Atwood, 2 Ch.

Cas. 36, 22 Eng. Rep. 835 (1688); Peters v. Soame, 2 Vern.

428, 428–429, 23 Eng. Rep. 874 (Ch. 1701); Squib v. Wyn,

1 P. Wms. 378, 381, 24 Eng. Rep. 432, 433 (Ch. 1717);

Lord Carteret v. Paschal, 3 P. Wms. 197, 199, 24 Eng. Rep.

1028, 1029 (Ch. 1733); Row v. Dawson, 1 Ves. sen. 331,

332–333, 27 Eng. Rep. 1064, 1064–1065 (Ch. 1749). See

also M. Smith, Law of Assignment: The Creation and

Transfer of Choses in Action 131 (2007) (by the beginning

of the 18th century, “it became settled that equity would

recognize the validity of the assignment of both debts and

of other things regarded by the common law as choses in

action”).

Courts of law, meanwhile, would permit the assignee

with an equitable interest to bring suit, but nonetheless

required the assignee to obtain a “power of attorney” from

the holder of the legal title, namely, the assignor, and

further required the assignee to bring suit in the name of

that assignor. See, e.g., Cook, Alienability of Choses in

Action, 29 Harv. L. Rev. 816, 822 (1916) (“[C]ommon law

lawyers were able, through the device of the ‘power of

attorney’ . . . to enable the assignee to obtain relief in

common law proceedings by suing in the name of the

assignor”); 29 R. Lord, Williston on Contracts §74.2, pp.

214–215 (4th ed. 2003). Compare, e.g., Barrow v. Gray,

Cro. Eliz. 551, 78 Eng. Rep. 797 (Q. B. 1653), and South &

Marsh’s Case, 3 Leo. 234, 74 Eng. Rep. 654 (Exch. 1686)

(limiting the use of a power of attorney to cases in which

the assignor owed the assignee a debt), with Holdsworth,

supra, at 1021 (noting that English courts abandoned that

8 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

limitation by the end of the 18th century). At the same

time, courts of law would permit an assignor to sue even

when he had transferred away his beneficial interest. And

they permitted the assignor to sue in such circumstances

precisely because the assignor retained legal title. See,

e.g., Winch v. Keeley, 1 T. R. 619, 99 Eng. Rep. 1284 (K. B.

1787) (allowing the bankrupt assignor of a chose in action

to sue a debtor for the benefit of the assignee because the

assignor possessed legal, though not equitable, title).

The upshot is that by the time Blackstone published

volume II of his Commentaries in 1766, he could dismiss

the “ancient common law” prohibition on assigning choses

in action as a “nicety . . . now disregarded.” 2 Blackstone,

supra, at *442.

B

Legal practice in the United States largely mirrored

that in England. In the latter half of the 18th century and

throughout the 19th century, American courts regularly

“exercised their powers in favor of the assignee,” both at

law and in equity. 9 Corbin on Contracts §47.3, at 137.

See, e.g., McCullum v. Coxe, 1 Dall. 139 (Pa. 1785) (pro-

tecting assignee of a debt against a collusive settlement by

the assignor); Dennie v. Chapman, 1 Root 113, 115 (Conn.

Super. 1789) (assignee of a nonnegotiable note can bring

suit “in the name of the original promisee or his adminis-

trator”); Andrews v. Beecker, 1 Johns. Cas. 411, 411–412,

n. (N. Y. Sup. 1800) (“Courts of law . . . are, in justice,

bound to protect the rights of the assignees, as much as a

court of equity, though they may still require the action to

be brought in the name of the assignor”); Riddle & Co. v.

Mandeville, 5 Cranch 322 (1809) (assignees of promissory

notes entitled to bring suit in equity). Indeed, §11 of the

Judiciary Act of 1789 specifically authorized federal courts

to take “cognizance of any suit to recover the contents of

any promissory note or other chose in action in favour of

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 9

Opinion of the Court

an assignee” so long as federal jurisdiction would lie if the

assignor himself had brought suit. 1 Stat. 79.

Thus, in 1816, Justice Story, writing for a unanimous

Court, summarized the practice in American courts as

follows: “Courts of law, following in this respect the rules

of equity, now take notice of assignments of choses in

action, and exert themselves to afford them every support

and protection.” Welch v. Mandeville, 1 Wheat. 233, 236.

He added that courts of equity have “disregarded the rigid

strictness of the common law, and protected the rights of

the assignee of choses in action,” and noted that courts of

common law “now consider an assignment of a chose in

action as substantially valid, only preserving, in certain

cases, the form of an action commenced in the name of the

assignor.” Id., at 237, n.

It bears noting, however, that at the time of the found-

ing (and in some States well before then) the law did

permit the assignment of legal title to at least some choses

in action. In such cases, the assignee could bring suit on

the assigned claim in his own name, in a court of law. See,

e.g., 3 Va. Stat. at Large 378, Ch. XXXIV (W. Hening ed.

1823) (reprinted 1969) (Act of Oct. 1705) (permitting any

person to “assign or transfer any bond or bill for debt over

to any other person” and providing that “the asignee or

assignees, his and their executors and administrators by

virtue of such assignment shall and may have lawfull

power to commence and prosecute any suit at law in his or

their own name or names”); Act of May 28, 1715, Ch.

XXVIII, Gen. Laws of Penn. 60 (J. Dunlop 2d ed. 1849)

(permitting the assignment of “bonds, specialties, and

notes” and authorizing “the person or persons, to whom

the said bonds, specialties or notes, are . . . assigned” to

“commence and prosecute his, her, or their actions at

law”); Patent Act of 1793, ch. 11, §4, 1 Stat. 322 (“[I]t shall

be lawful for any inventor, his executor or administrator to

assign the title and interest in the said invention, at any-

10 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

time, and the assignee . . . shall thereafter stand in

the place of the original inventor, both as to right and

responsibility”).

C

By the 19th century, courts began to consider the spe-

cific question presented here: whether an assignee of a

legal claim for money could sue when that assignee had

promised to give all litigation proceeds back to the as-

signor. During that century American law at the state

level became less formalistic through the merger of law

and equity, through statutes more generously permitting

an assignor to pass legal title to an assignee, and through

the adoption of rules that permitted any “real party in

interest” to bring suit. See 6A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M.

Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §1541, pp. 320–321

(2d ed. 1990) (hereinafter Wright & Miller); see also 9

Corbin, supra, §47.3, at 137. The courts recognized that

pre-existing law permitted an assignor to bring suit on a

claim even though the assignor retained nothing more

than naked legal title. Since the law increasingly permit-

ted the transfer of legal title to an assignee, courts agreed

that assignor and assignee should be treated alike in this

respect. And rather than abolish the assignor’s well-

established right to sue on the basis of naked legal title

alone, many courts instead extended the same right to an

assignee. See, e.g., Clark & Hutchins, The Real Party in

Interest, 34 Yale L. J. 259, 264–265 (1925) (noting that the

changes in the law permitted both the assignee with “na-

ked legal title” and the assignee with an equitable interest

in a claim to bring suit).

Thus, during the 19th century, most state courts enter-

tained suits virtually identical to the litigation before us:

suits by individuals who were assignees for collection only,

i.e., assignees who brought suit to collect money owed to

their assignors but who promised to turn over to those

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 11

Opinion of the Court

assignors the proceeds secured through litigation. See,

e.g., Webb & Hepp v. Morgan, McClung & Co., 14 Mo. 428,

431 (1851) (holding that the assignees of a promissory note

for collection only can bring suit, even though they lack a

beneficial interest in the note, because the assignment

“creates in them such legal interest, that they thereby

become the persons to sue”); Meeker v. Claghorn, 44 N. Y.

349, 350, 353 (1871) (allowing suit by the assignee of a

cause of action even though the assignors “ ‘expected to

receive the amount recovered in the action,’ ” because the

assignee, as “legal holder of the claim,” was “the real party

in interest”); Searing v. Berry, 58 Iowa 20, 23, 24, 11 N. W.

708, 709 (1882) (where legal title to a judgment was as-

signed “merely for the purpose of enabling plaintiff to

enforce the collection” and the assignor in fact retained the

beneficial interest, the plaintiff-assignee could “prosecute

this suit to enforce the collection of the judgment”); Grant

v. Heverin, 77 Cal. 263, 265, 19 P. 493 (1888) (holding that

the assignee of a bond could bring suit, even though he

lacked a beneficial interest in the bond, and adopting the

rule that an assignee with legal title to an assigned claim

can bring suit even where the assignee must “account to

the assignor” for “a part of the proceeds” or “is to account

for the whole proceeds” (internal quotation marks omit-

ted)); McDaniel v. Pressler, 3 Wash. 636, 638, 637, 29 P.

209, 210 (1892) (holding that the assignee of promissory

notes was the real party in interest, even though the

assignment was “for the purpose of collection” and the

assignee had “no interest other than that of the legal

holder of said notes”); Wines v. Rio Grande W. R. Co., 9

Utah 228, 235, 33 P. 1042, 1044, 1045 (1893) (holding that

an assignee could bring suit based on causes of action

assigned to him “simply to enable him to sue” and who

“would turn over to the assignors all that was recovered in

the action, after deducting [the assignors’] proportion of

the expenses of the suit”); Gomer v. Stockdale, 5 Colo. App.

12 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

489, 492, 39 P. 355, 357, 356 (1895) (permitting suit by a

party who was assigned legal title to contractual rights,

where the assignor retained the beneficial interest, noting

that the doctrine that “prevails in Colorado” is that the

assignee may bring suit in his own name “although there

may be annexed to the transfer the condition that when

the sum is collected the whole or some part of it must be

paid over to the assignor”). See also Appendix, infra

(collecting cases from numerous other States approving of

suits by assignees for collection).

Of course, the dissent rightly notes, some States during

this period of time refused to recognize assignee-for-

collection suits, or otherwise equivocated on the matter.

See post, at 12–13. But so many States allowed these

suits that by 1876, the distinguished procedure and equity

scholar John Norton Pomeroy declared it “settled by a

great preponderance of authority, although there is some

conflict” that an assignee is “entitled to sue in his own

name” whenever the assignment vests “legal title” in the

assignee, and notwithstanding “any contemporaneous,

collateral agreement by virtue of which he is to receive a

part only of the proceeds . . . or even is to thus account [to

the assignor] for the whole proceeds.” Remedies and

Remedial Rights §132, p. 159 (internal quotation marks

omitted and emphasis added). Other contemporary schol-

ars reached the same basic conclusion. See, e.g., P. Bliss,

A Treatise upon the Law of Pleading §51, p. 69 (2d ed.

1887) (stating that “[m]ost of the courts have held that

where negotiable paper has been indorsed, or other choses

in action have been assigned, it does not concern the de-

fendant for what purpose the transfer has been made” and

giving examples of States permitting assignees to bring

suit even where they lacked a beneficial interest in the

assigned claims (emphasis added)). See also Clark &

Hutchins, supra, at 264 (“many, probably most, American

jurisdictions” have held that “an assignee who has no

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 13

Opinion of the Court

beneficial interest, like an assignee for collection only, may

prosecute an action in his own name” (emphasis added)).

Even Michael Ferguson’s California Law Review Com-

ment—which the dissent cites as support for its argument

about “the divergent practice” among the courts, post, at

14—recognizes that “[a] majority of courts has held that

an assignee for collection only is a real party in interest”

entitled to bring suit. See Comment, The Real Party in

Interest Rule Revitalized: Recognizing Defendant’s Inter-

est in the Determination of Proper Parties Plaintiff, 55

Cal. L. Rev. 1452, 1475 (1967) (emphasis added); see also

id., at 1476, n. 118 (noting that even “[t]he few courts that

have wavered on the question have always ended up in the

camp of the majority” (emphasis added)).

During this period, a number of federal courts similarly

indicated approval of suits by assignees for collection only.

See, e.g., Bradford v. Jenks, 3 F. Cas. 1132, 1134 (No.

1,769) (CC Ill. 1840) (stating that the plaintiff, the receiver

of a bank, could bring suit in federal court to collect on a

note owed to that bank if he sued as the bank’s assignee,

not its receiver, but ultimately holding that the plaintiff

could not sue as an assignee because there was no diver-

sity jurisdiction); Orr v. Lacy, 18 F. Cas. 834 (No. 10,589)

(CC Mich. 1847) (affirming judgment for the plaintiff, the

endorsee of a bill of exchange, on the ground that, as

endorsee, he had the “legal right” to bring suit notwith-

standing the fact that the proceeds of the litigation would

be turned over to the endorser); Murdock v. The Emma

Graham, 17 F. Cas. 1012, 1013 (No. 9,940) (DC SD Ohio

1878) (permitting the assignee of a claim for injury to a

“float or barge” to bring suit when, “under the assign-

ment,” the assignor’s creditors would benefit from the

litigation); The Rupert City, 213 F. 263, 266–267 (WD

Wash. 1914) (assignees of claims for collection only could

bring suit in maritime law because “an assignment for

collection . . . vest[s] such an interest in [an] assignee as to

14 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

entitle him to sue”).

Even this Court long ago indicated that assignees for

collection only can properly bring suit. For example, in

Waite v. Santa Cruz, 184 U. S. 302 (1902), the plaintiff

sued to collect on a number of municipal bonds and cou-

pons whose “legal title” had been vested in him but which

were transferred to him “for collection only.” Id., at 324.

The Court, in a unanimous decision, ultimately held that

the federal courts could not hear his suit because the

amount-in-controversy requirement of diversity jurisdic-

tion would not have been satisfied if the bondholders and

coupon holders had sued individually. See id., at 328–329.

However, before reaching this holding, the Court expressly

stated that the suit could properly be brought in federal

court “if the only objection to the jurisdiction of the Circuit

Court is that the plaintiff was invested with the legal title

to the bonds and coupons simply for purposes of collec-

tion.” Id., at 325.

Next, in Spiller v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 253 U. S.

117 (1920), a large number of cattle shippers assigned to

Spiller (the secretary of a Cattle Raiser’s Association) their

individual reparation claims against railroads they said

had charged them excessive rates. The Federal Court of

Appeals held that Spiller could not bring suit because, in

effect, he was an assignee for collection only and would be

passing back to the cattle shippers any money he recov-

ered from the litigation. In a unanimous decision, this

Court reversed. The Court wrote that the cattle shippers’

“assignments were absolute in form” and “plainly”

“vest[ed] the legal title in Spiller.” Id., at 134. The Court

conceded that the assignments did not pass “beneficial or

equitable title” to Spiller. Ibid. But the Court then said

that “this was not necessary to support the right of the

assignee to claim an award of reparation and enable him

to recover it by action at law brought in his own name but

for the benefit of the equitable owners of the claims.” Ibid.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 15

Opinion of the Court

The Court thereby held that Spiller’s legal title alone was

sufficient to allow him to bring suit in federal court on the

aggregated claims of his assignors.

Similarly, in Titus v. Wallick, 306 U. S. 282 (1939), this

Court unanimously held that (under New York law) a

plaintiff, an assignee for collection, had “dominion over the

claim for purposes of suit” because the assignment pur-

ported to “ ‘sell, assign, transfer and set over’ the chose in

action” to the assignee. Id., at 289. More importantly for

present purposes, the Court said that the assignment’s

“legal effect was not curtailed by the recital that the as-

signment was for purposes of suit and that its proceeds

were to be turned over or accounted for to another.” Ibid.

To be clear, we do not suggest that the Court’s decisions

in Waite, Spiller, and Titus conclusively resolve the stand-

ing question before us. We cite them because they offer

additional and powerful support for the proposition that

suits by assignees for collection have long been seen as

“amenable” to resolution by the judicial process. Steel Co.,

523 U. S., at 102.

Finally, we note that there is also considerable, more

recent authority showing that an assignee for collection

may properly sue on the assigned claim in federal court.

See, e.g., 6A Wright & Miller §1545, at 346–348 (noting

that an assignee with legal title is considered to be a real

party in interest and that as a result “federal courts have

held that an assignee for purposes of collection who holds

legal title to the debt according to the governing substan-

tive law is the real party in interest even though the as-

signee must account to the assignor for whatever is recov-

ered in the action”); 6 Am. Jur. 2d, Assignments §184, pp.

262–263 (1999) (“An assignee for collection or security only

is within the meaning of the real party in interest statutes

and entitled to sue in his or her own name on an assigned

account or chose in action, although he or she must ac-

count to the assignor for the proceeds of the action, even

16 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

when the assignment is without consideration” (footnote

omitted)). See also Rosenblum v. Dingfelder, 111 F. 2d

406, 407 (CA2 1940); Staggers v. Otto Gerdau Co., 359

F. 2d 292, 294 (CA2 1966); Dixie Portland Flour Mills, Inc.

v. Dixie Feed & Seed Co., 382 F. 2d 830, 833 (CA6 1967);

Klamath-Lake Pharmaceutical Assn. v. Klamath Medical

Serv. Bur., 701 F. 2d 1276, 1282 (CA9 1983).

D

The history and precedents that we have summarized

make clear that courts have long found ways to allow

assignees to bring suit; that where assignment is at issue,

courts—both before and after the founding— have always

permitted the party with legal title alone to bring suit; and

that there is a strong tradition specifically of suits by

assignees for collection. We find this history and prece-

dent “well nigh conclusive” in respect to the issue before

us: Lawsuits by assignees, including assignees for collec-

tion only, are “cases and controversies of the sort tradi-

tionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial proc-

ess.” Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United

States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U. S. 765, 777–778 (2000) (in-

ternal quotation marks omitted).

III

Petitioners have not offered any convincing reason why

we should depart from the historical tradition of suits by

assignees, including assignees for collection. In any event,

we find that the assignees before us satisfy the Article III

standing requirements articulated in more modern deci-

sions of this Court.

Petitioners argue, for example, that the aggregators

have not themselves suffered any injury in fact and that

the assignments for collection “do not suffice to transfer

the payphone operators’ injuries.” Brief for Petitioners 18.

It is, of course, true that the aggregators did not originally

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 17

Opinion of the Court

suffer any injury caused by the long-distance carriers; the

payphone operators did. But the payphone operators

assigned their claims to the aggregators lock, stock, and

barrel. See APPC Servs., 418 F. 3d, at 1243 (there is “no

reason to believe the assignment is anything less than a

complete transfer to the aggregator” of the injury and

resulting claim); see also App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a

(Agreement provides that each payphone operator “as-

signs, transfers and sets over” to the aggregator “all

rights, title and interest” in dial-around compensation

claims). And within the past decade we have expressly

held that an assignee can sue based on his assignor’s

injuries. In Vermont Agency, supra, we considered

whether a qui tam relator possesses Article III standing to

bring suit under the False Claims Act, which authorizes a

private party to bring suit to remedy an injury (fraud) that

the United States, not the private party, suffered. We

held that such a relator does possess standing. And we

said that is because the Act “effect[s] a partial assignment

of the Government’s damages claim” and that assignment

of the “United States’ injury in fact suffices to confer

standing on [the relator].” Id., at 773, 774. Indeed, in

Vermont Agency we stated quite unequivocally that “the

assignee of a claim has standing to assert the injury in

fact suffered by the assignor.” Id., at 773.

Petitioners next argue that the aggregators cannot

satisfy the redressability requirement of standing because,

if successful in this litigation, the aggregators will simply

remit the litigation proceeds to the payphone operators.

But petitioners misconstrue the nature of our redressabil-

ity inquiry. That inquiry focuses, as it should, on whether

the injury that a plaintiff alleges is likely to be redressed

through the litigation—not on what the plaintiff ulti-

mately intends to do with the money he recovers. See,

e.g., id., at 771 (to demonstrate redressability, the plaintiff

must show a “substantial likelihood that the requested

18 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

relief will remedy the alleged injury in fact” (internal

quotation marks omitted and emphasis added)); Lujan,

504 U. S., at 561 (“[I]t must be likely . . . that the injury

will be redressed by a favorable decision” (internal quota-

tion marks omitted and emphasis added)). Here, a legal

victory would unquestionably redress the injuries for

which the aggregators bring suit. The aggregators’ inju-

ries relate to the failure to receive the required dial-

around compensation. And if the aggregators prevail in

this litigation, the long-distance carriers would write a

check to the aggregators for the amount of dial-around

compensation owed. What does it matter what the aggre-

gators do with the money afterward? The injuries would

be redressed whether the aggregators remit the litigation

proceeds to the payphone operators, donate them to char-

ity, or use them to build new corporate headquarters.

Moreover, the statements our prior cases made about the

need to show redress of the injury are consistent with

what numerous authorities have long held in the assign-

ment context, namely, that an assignee for collection may

properly bring suit to redress the injury originally suffered

by his assignor. Petitioners might disagree with those

authorities. But petitioners have not provided us with a

good reason to reconsider them.

The dissent argues that our redressability analysis

“could not be more wrong,” because “[w]e have never

approved federal-court jurisdiction over a claim where the

entire relief requested will run to a party not before the

court. Never.” Post, at 5 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). But

federal courts routinely entertain suits which will result in

relief for parties that are not themselves directly bringing

suit. Trustees bring suits to benefit their trusts; guardi-

ans ad litem bring suits to benefit their wards; receivers

bring suit to benefit their receiverships; assignees in

bankruptcy bring suit to benefit bankrupt estates; execu-

tors bring suit to benefit testator estates; and so forth.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 19

Opinion of the Court

The dissent’s view of redressability, if taken seriously,

would work a sea change in the law. Moreover, to the

extent that trustees, guardians ad litem, and the like have

some sort of “obligation” to the parties whose interests

they vindicate through litigation, see post, at 7–8, n. 2, the

same is true in respect to the aggregators here. The ag-

gregators have a contractual obligation to litigate “in the

[payphone operator’s] interest.” App. to Pet. for Cert.

115a. (And if the aggregators somehow violate that con-

tractual obligation, say, by agreeing to settle the claims

against the long-distance providers in exchange for a

kickback from those providers, each payphone operator

would be able to bring suit for breach of contract.)

Petitioners also make a further conceptual argument.

They point to cases in which this Court has said that a

party must possess a “personal stake” in a case in order to

have standing under Article III. See Baker v. Carr, 369

U. S. 186, 204 (1962). And petitioners add that, because

the aggregators will not actually benefit from a victory in

this case, they lack a “personal stake” in the litigation’s

outcome. The problem with this argument is that the

general “personal stake” requirement and the more spe-

cific standing requirements (injury in fact, redressability,

and causation) are flip sides of the same coin. They are

simply different descriptions of the same judicial effort to

assure, in every case or controversy, “that concrete ad-

verseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon

which the court so largely depends for illumination.” Ibid.

See also Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U. S. ___, ___ (2007)

(slip op., at 13) (“At bottom, the gist of the question of

standing is whether petitioners have such a personal

stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that

concrete adverseness” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Courts, during the past two centuries, appear to have

found that “concrete adverseness” where an assignee for

collection brings a lawsuit. And petitioners have provided

20 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

us with no grounds for reaching a contrary conclusion.

Petitioners make a purely functional argument, as well.

Read as a whole, they say, the assignments in this litiga-

tion constitute nothing more than a contract for legal

services. We think this argument is overstated. There is

an important distinction between simply hiring a lawyer

and assigning a claim to a lawyer (on the lawyer’s promise

to remit litigation proceeds). The latter confers a property

right (which creditors might attach); the former does not.

Finally, we note, as a practical matter, that it would be

particularly unwise for us to abandon history and prece-

dent in resolving the question before us. Were we to agree

with petitioners that the aggregators lack standing, our

holding could easily be overcome. For example, the

Agreement could be rewritten to give the aggregator a tiny

portion of the assigned claim itself, perhaps only a dollar

or two. Or the payphone operators might assign all of

their claims to a “Dial-Around Compensation Trust” and

then pay a trustee (perhaps the aggregator) to bring suit

on behalf of the trust. Accordingly, the far more sensible

course is to abide by the history and tradition of assignee

suits and find that the aggregators possess Article III

standing.

IV

Petitioners argue that, even if the aggregators have

standing under Article III, we should nonetheless deny

them standing for a number of prudential reasons. See

Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U. S. 1, 11

(2004) (prudential standing doctrine “embodies judicially

self-imposed limits on the exercise of federal jurisdiction”

(internal quotation marks omitted)).

First, petitioners invoke certain prudential limitations

that we have imposed in prior cases where a plaintiff has

sought to assert the legal claims of third parties. See, e.g.,

Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 501 (1975) (expressing a

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 21

Opinion of the Court

“reluctance to exert judicial power when the plaintiff’s

claim to relief rests on the legal rights of third parties”);

Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development

Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 263 (1977) (“In the ordinary case, a

party is denied standing to assert the rights of third per-

sons”); Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co.,

467 U. S. 947, 955 (1984) (a plaintiff ordinarily “ ‘cannot

rest his claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of

third parties’ ”).

These third-party cases, however, are not on point.

They concern plaintiffs who seek to assert not their own

legal rights, but the legal rights of others. See, e.g.,

Warth, supra, at 499 (plaintiff “generally must assert his

own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest his claim to

relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties”

(emphasis added)); see also Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U. S.

125 (2004) (lawyers lack standing to assert the constitu-

tional rights of defendants deprived of appointed counsel

on appeal); Powers v. Ohio, 499 U. S. 400 (1991) (permit-

ting a criminal defendant to assert rights of juror dis-

criminated against because of race); Craig v. Boren, 429

U. S. 190 (1976) (permitting beer vendors to assert rights

of prospective male customers aged 18 to 21 who, unlike

females of the same ages, were barred from purchasing

beer). Here, the aggregators are suing based on injuries

originally suffered by third parties. But the payphone

operators assigned to the aggregators all “rights, title and

interest” in claims based on those injuries. Thus, in the

litigation before us, the aggregators assert what are, due

to that transfer, legal rights of their own. The aggrega-

tors, in other words, are asserting first-party, not third-

party, legal rights. Moreover, we add that none of the

third-party cases cited by petitioners involve assignments

or purport to overturn the longstanding doctrine permit-

ting an assignee to bring suit on an assigned claim.

Second, petitioners suggest that the litigation here

22 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

simply represents an effort by the aggregators and the

payphone operators to circumvent Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 23’s class-action requirements. But we do not

understand how “circumvention” of Rule 23 could consti-

tute a basis for denying standing here. For one thing,

class actions are permissive, not mandatory. More impor-

tantly, class actions constitute but one of several methods

for bringing about aggregation of claims, i.e., they are but

one of several methods by which multiple similarly situ-

ated parties get similar claims resolved at one time and in

one federal forum. See Rule 20(a) (permitting joinder of

multiple plaintiffs); Rule 42 (permitting consolidation of

related cases filed in the same district court); 28 U. S. C.

§1407 (authorizing consolidation of pretrial proceedings

for related cases filed in multiple federal districts); §1404

(making it possible for related cases pending in different

federal courts to be transferred and consolidated in one

district court); D. Herr, Annotated Manual for Complex

Litigation §20.12, p. 279 (4th ed. 2007) (noting that

“[r]elated cases pending in different federal courts may be

consolidated in a single district” by transfer under 28

U. S. C. §1404(a)); J. Tidmarsh & R. Trangsrud, Complex

Litigation and the Adversary System 473–524 (1998)

(section on “Transfer Devices that Aggregate Cases in a

Single Venue”). Because the federal system permits ag-

gregation by other means, we do not think that the pay-

phone operators should be denied standing simply because

they chose one aggregation method over another.

Petitioners also point to various practical problems that

could arise because the aggregators, rather than the pay-

phone operators, are suing. In particular, they say that

the payphone operators may not comply with discovery

requests served on them, that the payphone operators may

not honor judgments reached in this case, and that peti-

tioners may not be able to bring, in this litigation, coun-

terclaims against the payphone operators. See Brief for

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 23

Opinion of the Court

Petitioners 46–48. Even assuming all that is so, courts

have long permitted assignee lawsuits notwithstanding

the fact that such problems could arise. Regardless,

courts are not helpless in the face of such problems. For

example, a district court can, if appropriate, compel a

party to collect and to produce whatever discovery-related

information is necessary. See Fed. Rules Civ. Proc.

26(b)(1), 30–31, 33–36. That court might grant a motion

to join the payphone operators to the case as “required”

parties. See Rule 19. Or the court might allow the carri-

ers to file a third-party complaint against the payphone

operators. See Rule 14(a). And the carriers could always

ask the Federal Communications Commission to find

administrative solutions to any remaining practical prob-

lems. Cf. 47 U. S. C. §276(b)(1)(A) (authorizing the FCC to

“prescribe regulations” that “ensure that all payphone

service providers are fairly compensated for each and

every completed [dial-around] call”). We do not say that

the litigation before us calls for the use of any such proce-

dural device. We mention them only to explain the lack of

any obvious need for the remedy that the carriers here

propose, namely, denial of standing.

Finally, we note that in this litigation, there has been no

allegation that the assignments were made in bad faith.

We note, as well, that the assignments were made for

ordinary business purposes. Were this not so, additional

prudential questions might perhaps arise. But these

questions are not before us, and we need not consider

them here.

V

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

24 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

APPENDIX

Examples of cases in which state courts entertained or

otherwise indicated approval of suits by assignees for

collection only. References to “Pomeroy’s rule” are refer-

ences to the statement of law set forth in J. Pomeroy,

Remedies and Remedial Rights §132, p. 159 (1876).

1. Webb & Hepp v. Morgan, McClung & Co., 14 Mo.

428, 431 (1851) (holding that the assignees of a promissory

note for collection only can bring suit, even though they

lack a beneficial interest in the note, because the assign-

ment “creates in them such legal interest, that they

thereby become the persons to sue”);

2. Castner v. Austin Sumner & Co., 2 Minn. 44, 47–48

(1858) (holding that the assignees of promissory notes

were proper plaintiffs, regardless of the arrangement they

and their assignor had made in respect to the proceeds of

the litigation, because the defendants “can only raise the

objection of a defect of parties to the suit, when it appears

that some other person or party than the Plaintiffs have

such a legal interest in the note that a recovery by the

Plaintiffs would not preclude it from being enforced, and

they be thereby subjected to the risk of another suit for the

same subject-matter” (emphasis added));

3. Cottle v. Cole, 20 Iowa 481, 485–486 (1866) (holding

that the assignee could sue, notwithstanding the possibil-

ity that the assignor was the party “beneficially interested

in the action,” because “[t]he course of decision in this

State establishes this rule, viz.: that the party holding the

legal title of a note or instrument may sue on it though he

be an agent or trustee, and liable to account to another for

the proceeds of the recovery”);

4. Alle n v. Brown, 44 N. Y. 228, 231, 234 (1870) (opinion

of Hunt, Comm’r) (holding that the assignee with legal

title to a cause of action was “legally the real party in

interest” “[e]ven if he be liable to another as a debtor upon

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 25

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

his contract for the collection he may thus make”);

5. Meeker v. Claghorn, 44 N. Y. 349, 350, 353 (1871)

(opinion of Earl, Comm’r) (allowing suit by the assignee of

a cause of action even though the assignors “ ‘expected to

receive the amount recovered in the action,’ ” because the

assignee, as “legal holder of the claim,” was “the real party

in interest”);

6. Hays v. Hathorn, 74 N. Y. 486, 490 (1878) (holding

that so long as an assignee has legal title to the assigned

commercial paper, the assignee may bring suit even if the

assignment was “merely for the purpose of collection” and

he acts merely as “equitable trustee” for the assignor, i.e.,

the assignor maintains the beneficial interest in the

paper);

7. Searing v. Berry, 58 Iowa 20, 23, 24, 11 N. W. 708,

709 (1882) (where legal title to a judgment was assigned

“merely for the purpose of enabling plaintiff to enforce the

collection” and the assignor in fact retained the beneficial

interest, the plaintiff-assignee could “prosecute this suit to

enforce the collection of the judgment”);

8. Haysler v. Dawson, 28 Mo. App. 531, 536 (1888) (hold-

ing, in light of the “recognized practice in this state,” that

the assignee could bring suit to recover on certain ac-

counts even where the assignment of the accounts had

been made “with the agreement that they were to [be]

[he]ld solely for the purpose of [the litigation],” i.e., the

assignor maintained the beneficial interest in the accounts

(emphasis added));

9. Grant v. Heverin, 77 Cal. 263, 265, 264, 19 P. 493

(1888) (holding that the assignee of a bond could bring

suit, even though he lacked a beneficial interest in the

bond, and endorsing Pomeroy’s rule as “a clear and correct

explication of the law”);

10. Young v. Hudson, 99 Mo. 102, 106, 12 S. W. 632, 633

(1889) (holding that an assignee could sue to collect on an

account for merchandise sold, even though the money

26 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

would be remitted to the assignor, because “[a]n assignee

of a chose in action arising out of contract, may sue upon it

in his own name, though the title was passed to him only

for the purpose of collection”);

11. Jackson v. Hamm, 14 Colo. 58, 61, 23 P. 88, 88–89

(1890) (holding that the assignee of a judgment was “the

real party in interest” and was “entitled to sue in his own

name,” even though the beneficial interest in the judg-

ment was held by someone else);

12. Saulsbury v. Corwin, 40 Mo. App. 373, 376 (1890)

(permitting suit by an assignee of a note who “had no

interest in the note” on the theory that “[o]ne who holds

negotiable paper for collection merely may sue on it in his

own name”);

13. Anderson v. Reardon, 46 Minn. 185, 186, 48 N. W.

777 (1891) (where plaintiff had been assigned a claim on

the “understanding” that he would remit the proceeds to

the assignor less the “amount due him for services already

rendered, and to be thereafter rendered” to the assignor,

the plaintiff could bring suit, even though he had “already

collected on the demand enough to pay his own claim for

services up to that time,” because “[i]t is no concern of the

defendant whether the assignee of a claim receives the

money on it in his own right or as trustee of the assignor”);

14. McDaniel v. Pressler, 3 Wash. 636, 638, 637, 29 P.

209, 210 (1892) (holding that the assignee of promissory

notes was the real party in interest, even the assignment

was “for the purpose of collection” and the assignee had

“no interest other than that of the legal holder of said

notes”);

15. Minnesota Thresher Mfg. Co. v. Heipler, 49 Minn.

395, 396, 52 N. W. 33 (1892) (upholding the plaintiff-

assignee’s judgment where that assignee “held the legal

title to the demand” and notwithstanding the fact that

“there was an agreement between the [assignor] and the

plaintiff that the latter took the [assignment] only for

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 27

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

collection”);

16. Wines v. Rio Grande W. R. Co., 9 Utah 228, 235, 33

P. 1042, 1044, 1045 (1893) (adopting Pomeroy’s rule and

holding that an assignee could bring suit based on causes

of action assigned to him “simply to enable him to sue”

and who “would turn over to the assignors all that was

recovered in the action, after deducting their proportion of

the expenses of the suit”);

17. Greig v. Riordan, 99 Cal. 316, 323, 33 P. 913, 916

(1893) (holding that the plaintiff-assignee could sue on

claims assigned by multiple parties “for collection,” stating

that “[i]t is [a] matter of common knowledge that for the

purpose of saving expense commercial associations and

others resort to this method” and repeating the rule that

“[i]n such cases the assignee becomes the legal holder of a

chose in action, which is sufficient to entitle him to

recover”);

18. Gomer v. Stockdale, 5 Colo. App. 489, 492, 39 P. 355,

357, 356 (1895) (permitting suit by a party who was as-

signed legal title to contractual rights, where the assignor

retained the beneficial interest, noting that the doctrine

that “prevails in Colorado” is that the assignee may bring

suit in his own name “although there may be annexed to

the transfer the condition that when the sum is collected

the whole or some part of it must be paid over to the

assignor”);

19. Cox’s Executors v. Crockett & Co., 92 Va. 50, 58, 57,

22 S. E. 840, 843 (1895) (finding that suit by assignor

following an adverse judgment against assignee was

barred by res judicata but endorsing Pomeroy’s rule that

an assignee could bring suit as the “real party in interest”

even where the assignee must “account to the assignor, or

other person, for the residue, or even is to thus account for

the whole proceeds” of the litigation);

20. Sroufe v. Soto Bros. & Co., 5 Ariz. 10, 11, 12, 43 P.

221 (1896) (holding that state law permits “a party to

28 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

maintain an action on an account which has been assigned

to him for the purpose of collection, only” because such

parties are “holders of the legal title of said accounts”);

21. Ingham v. Weed, 5 Cal. Unreported Cases, 645, 649,

48 P. 318, 320 (1897) (holding that the assignees of prom-

issory notes could bring suit where the assignors retained

part of the beneficial interest in the outcome, and ex-

pressly noting that the assignees could bring suit even if

the entire interest in the notes had been assigned to them

as “agents for collection” because, citing Pomeroy and

prior California cases “to the same effect,” an assignee can

bring suit where he has “legal title” to a claim, notwith-

standing “any contemporaneous collateral agreement” by

which he is to account to the assignor for part or even “the

whole proceeds”);

22. Citizens Bank v. Corkings 9 S. D. 614, 615, 616, 70

N. W. 1059, 1060, rev’d on other grounds, 10 S. D. 98, 72

N. W. 99 (1897) (holding that where the assignee “took a

formal written assignment absolute in terms, but with the

understanding that he would take the claim, collect what

he could, and turn over to the company the proceeds

thereof less the expenses of collection,” the assignee could

sue because the “rule is that a written or verbal assign-

ment, absolute in terms, and vesting in the assignee the

apparent legal title to a chose in action, is unaffected by a

collateral contemporaneous agreement respecting the

proceeds”);

23. Chase v. Dodge, 111 Wis. 70, 73, 86 N. W. 548, 549

(1901) (adopting New York’s rule that an assignee is the

real party in interest so long as he “holds the legal title” to

an assigned claim, regardless of the existence of “any

private or implied understanding” between the assignor

and assignee concerning the beneficial interest (internal

quotation marks omitted));

24. Roth v. Continental Wire Co., 94 Mo. App. 236, 262–

264, 68 S. W. 594, 602 (1902) (noting that Missouri has

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 29

Opinion of the Court

Appendix to opinion of the Court

adopted Pomeroy’s rule and holding that the trial court

did not err in excluding evidence that plaintiff was as-

signed the cause of action for collection only);

25. Manley v. Park, 68 Kan. 400, 402, 75 P. 557, 558

(1904) (overruling prior state cases and holding that

where the assignment of a bond or note vests legal title in

the assignee, the assignee can bring suit even where the

assignee promises to remit to the assignor “a part or all of

the proceeds” (emphasis added));

26. Eagle Mining & Improvement Co. v. Lund, 14 N. M.

417, 420–422, 94 P. 949, 950 (1908) (adopting the rule that

the assignee of a note can bring suit even where the as-

signor, not the assignee, maintains the beneficial interest

in the note);

27. Harrison v. Pearcy & Coleman, 174 Ky. 485, 488,

487, 192 S. W. 513, 514–515 (1917) (holding that the

assignee could bring suit to collect on a note, even though

he was “an assignee for the purpose of collection only” and

had “no financial interest in the note”).

28. James v. Lederer-Strauss & Co., 32 Wyo. 377, 233 P.

137, 139 (1925) (“By the clear weight of authority a person

to whom a chose in action has been assigned for the pur-

pose of collection may maintain an action thereon . . . and

as such is authorized by statute in this state to maintain

an action in his own name”).

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 1

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 07–552

_________________

SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L. P., ET AL.,

PETITIONERS v. APCC SERVICES, INC., ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

[June 23, 2008]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA,

JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.

The majority concludes that a private litigant may sue

in federal court despite having to “pass back . . . all pro-

ceeds of the litigation,” Brief for Respondents 9, thus

depriving that party of any stake in the outcome of the

litigation. The majority reaches this conclusion, in flat

contravention of our cases interpreting the case-or-

controversy requirement of Article III, by reference to a

historical tradition that is, at best, equivocal. That history

does not contradict what common sense should tell us:

There is a legal difference between something and noth-

ing. Respondents have nothing to gain from their lawsuit.

Under settled principles of standing, that fact requires

dismissal of their complaint.1

I

Article III of the Constitution confines the judicial power

of the federal courts to actual “Cases” and “Controversies.”

§2. As we have recently reaffirmed, “[n]o principle is more

fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of

government than the constitutional limitation of federal-

——————

1 Because respondents have failed to demonstrate that they have

Article III standing to bring their claims, I do not reach the question

whether prudential considerations would also bar their suit.

2 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies.” Daim-

lerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332, 341 (2006) (quot-

ing Raines v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 818 (1997); internal

quotation marks omitted). Unlike the political branches,

directly elected by the people, the courts derive their

authority under Article III, including the power of judicial

review, from “the necessity . . . of carrying out the judicial

function of deciding cases.” Cuno, supra, at 340. That is

why Article III courts “may exercise power only . . . ‘as a

necessity,’ ” that is, only when they are sure they have an

actual case before them. Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737,

752 (1984) (quoting Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v.

Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, 345 (1892)). “If a dispute is not a

proper case or controversy, the courts have no business

deciding it, or expounding the law in the course of doing

so.” Cuno, supra, at 341.

Given the importance of assuring a court’s jurisdiction

before deciding the merits of a case, “[w]e have always

insisted on strict compliance with th[e] jurisdictional

standing requirement.” Raines, supra, at 819. And until

today, it has always been clear that a party lacking a

direct, personal stake in the litigation could not invoke the

power of the federal courts. See Lujan v. Defenders of

Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 573 (1992) (plaintiff must demon-

strate a “concrete private interest in the outcome of [the]

suit”); Lance v. Coffman, 549 U. S. ___, ___ (2007) (per

curiam) (slip op., at 3) (plaintiff must seek relief that

“directly and tangibly benefits him” (quoting Lujan, supra,

at 574; emphasis added; internal quotation marks omit-

ted)); Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 244, n. 15 (1982)

(Article III requires a litigant to show that a favorable

decision “will relieve a discrete injury to himself” (empha-

sis added)); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 499 (1975)

(“The Art. III judicial power exists only to redress or oth-

erwise to protect against injury to the complaining party”

(emphasis added)).

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 3

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

In recent years, we have elaborated the standing re-

quirements of Article III in terms of a three-part test—

whether the plaintiff can demonstrate an injury in fact

that is fairly traceable to the challenged actions of the

defendant and likely to be redressed by a favorable judi-

cial decision. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environ-

ment, 523 U. S. 83, 102–103 (1998). But regardless of how

the test is articulated, “the point has always been the

same: whether a plaintiff ‘personally would benefit in a

tangible way from the court’s intervention.’ ” Id., at 103,

n. 5 (quoting Warth, supra, at 508; emphasis added). An

assignee who has acquired the bare legal right to prose-

cute a claim but no right to the substantive recovery can-

not show that he has a personal stake in the litigation.

The Court’s decision today is unprecedented. Vermont

Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Ste-

vens, 529 U. S. 765 (2000), does not support it. Vermont

Agency, in recognizing that a qui tam relator as assignee

of the United States had standing to sue, did not dispense

with the essential requirement of Article III standing that

the plaintiff have a “concrete private interest in the out-

come of [the] suit.” Id., at 772 (quoting Lujan, supra, at

573; internal quotation marks omitted). In Vermont

Agency, the qui tam relator’s bounty was sufficient to

establish standing because it represented a “partial as-

signment of the Government’s damages claim,” encom-

passing both a legal right to assert the claim and a stake

in the recovery. 529 U. S., at 773. Thus, it was clear that

the False Claims Act gave the “relator himself an interest

in the lawsuit,” in addition to “the right to retain a fee out

of the recovery.” Id., at 772.

Here, respondents are authorized to bring suit on behalf

of the payphone operators, but they have no claim to the

recovery. Indeed, their take is not tied to the recovery in

any way. Respondents receive their compensation based

on the number of payphones and telephone lines operated

4 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

by their clients, see App. 198, not based on the measure of

damages ultimately awarded by a court or paid by peti-

tioners as part of a settlement. Respondents received the

assignments only as a result of their willingness to as-

sume the obligation of remitting any recovery to the as-

signors, the payphone operators. That is, after all, the

entire point of the arrangement. The payphone operators

assigned their claims to respondents “for purposes of

collection,” App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a; respondents never

had any share in the amount collected. The absence of

any right to the substantive recovery means that respon-

dents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and

thus lack Article III standing. “When you got nothing, you

got nothing to lose.” Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone, on

Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).

To be sure, respondents doubtless have more than just a

passing interest in the litigation. As collection agencies,

respondents must demonstrate that they are willing to

make good on their threat to pursue their clients’ claims in

litigation. Even so, “an interest that is merely a ‘byprod-

uct’ of the suit itself cannot give rise to a cognizable injury

in fact for Article III standing purposes.” Vermont Agency,

supra, at 773. The benefit respondents would receive—the

general business goodwill that would result from a suc-

cessful verdict, the ability to collect dial-around compensa-

tion for their clients more effectively—is nothing more

than a byproduct of the current litigation. Such an inter-

est cannot support their standing to sue in federal court.

Cf. Steel Co., supra, at 107 (the costs of investigating and

prosecuting a substantive claim do not give rise to stand-

ing to assert the claim); Diamond v. Charles, 476 U. S. 54,

70 (1986) (an interest in recovering attorney’s fees does

not confer standing to litigate the underlying claim).

The undeniable consequence of today’s decision is that a

plaintiff need no longer demonstrate a personal stake in

the outcome of the litigation. Instead, the majority has

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 5

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

replaced the personal stake requirement with a completely

impersonal one. The right to sue is now the exact opposite

of a personal claim—it is a marketable commodity. By

severing the right to recover from the right to prosecute a

claim, the Court empowers anyone to bring suit on any

claim, whether it be the first assignee, the second, the

third, or so on. But, as we have said in another context,

standing is not “commutative.” Cuno, 547 U. S., at 352.

Legal claims, at least those brought in federal court, are

not fungible commodities.

The source of the Court’s mistake is easy to identify.

The Court goes awry when it asserts that the standing

inquiry focuses on whether the injury is likely to be re-

dressed, not whether the complaining party’s injury is

likely to be redressed. See ante, at 17–18. That could not

be more wrong. We have never approved federal-court

jurisdiction over a claim where the entire relief requested

will run to a party not before the court. Never. The Court

commits this mistake by treating the elements of standing

as separate strands rather than as interlocking and re-

lated elements meant to ensure a personal stake. Our

cases do not condone this approach.

The Court expressly rejected such an argument in Ver-

mont Agency, where the relator argued that he was “suing

to remedy an injury in fact suffered by the United States.”

529 U. S., at 771. We dismissed the argument out of hand,

noting that “[t]he Art. III judicial power exists only to

redress or otherwise to protect against injury to the com-

plaining party.” Id., at 771–772 (quoting Warth, 422 U. S.,

at 499; emphasis in Vermont Agency; internal quotation

marks omitted). Although the Court’s analysis in that

section of the opinion concerned the right of the relator to

assert the United States’ injury, the Court treated it as

axiomatic that any “redress” must also redound to the

benefit of the relator.

In Steel Co., the Court similarly rejected a basis for

6 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

standing that turned on relief sought—the imposition of

civil penalties—that was “payable to the United States

Treasury,” but not to the plaintiff. 523 U. S., at 106. We

observed that the plaintiff sought “not remediation of its

own injury,” but merely the “vindication of the rule of

law.” Ibid. (emphasis added). Importantly, the Court

recognized that “[r]elief that does not remedy the injury

suffered cannot bootstrap a plaintiff into federal court;

that is the very essence of the redressability requirement.”

Id., at 107. Again, the Court’s emphasis on the party’s

injury makes clear that the basis for rejecting standing in

Steel Co. was the fact that the remedy sought would not

benefit the party before the Court.

The majority’s view of the Article III redressability

requirement is also incompatible with what we said in

Raines, 521 U. S. 811. In that case, we held that individ-

ual Members of Congress lacked standing to contest the

constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act. We observed

that the Congressmen “do not claim that they have been

deprived of something to which they personally are enti-

tled.” Id., at 821. Rather, the Members sought to enforce

a right that ran to their office, not to their person. “If one

of the Members were to retire tomorrow, he would no

longer have a claim; the claim would be possessed by his

successor instead. The claimed injury thus runs (in a

sense) with the Member’s seat, a seat which the Member

holds . . . as trustee for his constituents, not as a preroga-

tive of personal power.” Ibid. We therefore held that the

individual Members did “not have a sufficient ‘personal

stake’ in th[e] dispute” to maintain their challenge. Id., at

830. See also Warth, supra, at 506 (denying standing

where “the record is devoid of any indication” that the

requested “relief would benefit petitioners”); Simon v.

Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 39,

42 (1976) (denying standing to plaintiffs who did not

“stand to profit in some personal interest” because it was

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 7

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

“purely speculative” whether the relief sought “would

result in these respondents’ receiving the hospital services

they desire” (emphasis added)).

The majority finds that respondents have a sufficient

stake in this litigation because the substantive recovery

will initially go to them, and “[w]hat does it matter what

the aggregators do with the money afterward?” Ante, at

18. The majority’s assertion implies, incorrectly, that

respondents have, or ever had, a choice of what to do with

the recovery. It may be true that a plaintiff’s independent

decision to pledge his recovery to another, as in respon-

dents’ hypothetical of an “original owner of a claim who

signs a collateral agreement with a charity obligating

herself to donate every penny she recovers in [the] litiga-

tion,” Brief for Respondents 21, would not divest the plain-

tiff of Article III standing. But respondents never had the

right to direct the disposition of the recovery; they have

only the right to sue. The hypothetical plaintiff who

chooses to pledge her recovery to charity, by contrast, will

secure a personal benefit from the recovery. Unlike re-

spondents’ claims, the hypothetical plaintiff’s pre-existing

claim is not tied in any way to her separate agreement to

direct her recovery to charity. She has more than the

right to sue; she has the right to exercise her independent

authority to direct the proceeds as she sees fit. In that

situation, the Article III requirement that a plaintiff

demonstrate a personal stake in the outcome of the litiga-

tion is satisfied.2

——————

2 The majority believes that the examples of trustees, guardians ad

litem, receivers, and executors show that “federal courts routinely

entertain suits which will result in relief for parties that are not them-

selves directly bringing suit.” Ante, at 18. None of these examples is

pertinent to the question here. “A guardian ad litem or next friend . . .

is a nominal party only; the ward is the real party in interest . . . .” 6A

C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §1548,

pp. 373–374 (2d ed. 1990). A receiver “is considered to be an officer of

8 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

The Court believes that these standing principles, em-

bodying a “core component derived directly from the Con-

stitution,” Allen, 468 U. S., at 751, that is of “particular

importance in ensuring that the Federal Judiciary re-

spects the proper—and properly limited—role of the courts

in a democratic society,” and that is “crucial in maintain-

ing the tripartite allocation of power set forth in the Con-

stitution,” Cuno, 547 U. S., at 341 (internal quotation

marks omitted), should yield “as a practical matter” to the

prospect that a contrary “holding could easily be over-

come,” ante, at 20. The Court chooses to elevate expedi-

ency above the strictures imposed by the Constitution.

That is a tradeoff the Constitution does not allow. Cf.

Raines, supra, at 820 (“[W]e must put aside the natural

urge to proceed directly to the merits of this important

dispute and to ‘settle’ it for the sake of convenience and

efficiency”). Perhaps it is true that a “dollar or two,” ante,

at 20, would give respondents a sufficient stake in the

——————

the court, and therefore not an agent of the parties, whose appointment

is incident to other proceedings in which some form of primary relief is

sought.” 12 id., §2981, at 9–10 (2d ed. 1997) (footnote omitted). Trus-

tees hold legal title to the assets in the trust estate and have an inde-

pendent fiduciary obligation to sue to preserve those assets. The

trustee’s discharge of its legal obligation is an independent, personal

benefit that supports the trustee’s standing to sue in federal court. The

majority’s response that assignees for collection only have a “contrac-

tual obligation to litigate,” ante, at 19, is unavailing, because the

contractual obligation to sue and remit the proceeds of any recovery

was a condition of the assignment of the claim in the first place. The

majority’s reasoning is perfectly circular: A suit pursuant to a contract

to remit proceeds satisfies Article III because there is a contract to

remit proceeds.

In any event, the majority cannot dispute the point that suits by

trustees, guardians ad litem, executors, and the like make up a settled,

continuous practice “of the sort traditionally amenable to, and resolved

by, the judicial process.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment,

523 U. S. 83, 102 (1998). As shown below, the same cannot be said for

suits by assignees for collection only. See infra, at 12–15.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 9

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

litigation. Article III is worth a dollar. And in any case,

the ease with which respondents can comply with the

requirements of Article III is not a reason to abandon our

precedents; it is a reason to adhere to them.

II

Given all this, it is understandable that the majority

opts to minimize its reliance on modern standing princi-

ples and to retreat to a broad, generalized reading of the

historical tradition of assignments. But that history does

not support the majority’s conclusion.

The first problem lies in identifying the relevant tradi-

tion. Much of the majority’s historical analysis focuses on

the generic (and undisputed) point that common law and

equity courts eventually permitted assignees to sue on

their assigned claims. See ante, at 5–10. I would treat

that point as settled as much by stare decisis, see Vermont

Agency, 529 U. S., at 773, as by the historic practice of the

King’s Bench and Chancery. But the general history of

assignments says nothing about the particular aspect of

suits brought on assigned claims that is relevant to this

case: whether an assignee who has acquired the legal right

to sue, but no right to any substantive recovery, can main-

tain an action in court. On that precise question, the

historical sources are either nonexistent or equivocal.

A

None of the English common-law sources on which the

majority relies establishes that assignments of this sort

would be permitted either at law or in equity. As the

majority’s discussion makes clear, both systems permitted

suits brought on assignments—either in equity by an

assignee having a beneficial interest in the litigation, or at

law by an assignee who had a power of attorney and sued

in the name of the assignor. See ante, at 6–8. But at all

times, suits based on assignments remained subject to the

10 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

prohibition on champerty and maintenance. See 7 W.

Holdsworth, History of English Law 535–536 (1926).3 By

the 18th century, an assignment no longer constituted

maintenance per se, see id., at 536, but it appears to have

been an open question whether an assignment of the

“[b]are [r]igh[t] to [l]itigate” would fail as “[s]avouring” of

champerty and maintenance, see M. Smith, Law of As-

signment: The Creation and Transfer of Choses in Action

318, 321 (2007). In order to sustain an assignment of the

right to sue, the assignment had to include the transfer of

a property interest to which the right of action was inci-

dent or subsidiary. Id., at 321–322; see also Prosser v.

Edmonds, 1 Y. & C. Exch. 481, 160 Eng. Rep. 196 (1835);

Dickinson v. Burrell, 35 Beav. 257, 55 Eng. Rep. 894

(1866); 2 J. Story, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence

§1040h, pp. 234–235 (8th ed. 1861); R. Megarry & P.

Baker, Snell’s Principles of Equity 82 (25th ed. 1960).

American courts as well understood the common-law

rule to require a transfer of interest to the assignee—over

and above the “naked right to bring a suit”—that gave the

assignee a “valuable right of property.” Traer v. Clews,

115 U. S. 528, 541 (1885). A New York court, surveying

the English sources, concluded that “an assignment to the

plaintiff of the assignor’s right to maintain and prosecute

an action for the specific performance of defendants’

agreement, amounts to nothing more than an assertion

that the assignor has undertaken to assign to the plaintiff

——————

3 Blackstone defined maintenance as the “officious intermeddling in a

suit that no way belongs to one, by maintaining or assisting either

party with money or otherwise, to prosecute or defend it . . . . This is an

offense against public justice, as it keeps alive strife and contention,

and perverts the remedial process of the law into an engine of oppres-

sion.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *134–*135. Champerty “is a

species of maintenance, . . . being a bargain with a plaintiff or defen-

dant campum partire, to divide the land or other matter sued for

between them, if they prevail at law; whereupon the champertor is to

carry on the party’s suit at his own expense.” Id., at *135.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 11

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

a bare right to litigate for the former’s benefit exclusively.”

Williams v. Boyle, 1 Misc. 364, 367, 20 N. Y. S. 720, 722

(Ct. Common Pleas 1892). To secure standing in a court of

equity, the court held, “it must appear that the assignee’s

successful prosecution of the action is susceptible of per-

sonal enjoyment by him . . . .” Ibid. (emphasis added).

So while there is no doubt that at common law, courts of

law and equity sought ways of protecting the rights of

assignees, they did not do so to the exclusion of the age-

long objection to maintenance, which could be found when

the assignee lacked a sufficient interest in the subject

matter of the litigation. During the common-law period at

least, it remained an open question whether an assignee

for collection, who by agreement took nothing from the

suit, had a sufficient interest in the assigned debt to sup-

port his right to sue.

To be sure, the assignments at issue here purport to

give respondents “all rights, title and interest” in the

payphone operators’ claims for dial-around compensation.

App. to Pet. for Cert. 114a. But when severed from the

right to retain any of the substantive recovery, it is not

clear that common-law courts of law or equity would have

treated the assigned right to litigate as incidental or sub-

sidiary to the interest represented by the claim itself. Cf.

7 Holdsworth, supra, at 538 (“[I]t was not till certain

classes of rights . . . became more freely assignable in

equity, that it became necessary to distinguish between

the cases in which assignment was permitted and cases in

which it was not; and it is for this reason that we find very

little clear authority on these questions till quite modern

times”).4

——————

4 The fact that a bankrupt assignor could sue at law to recover debts

for the benefit of an assignee creditor, see ante, at 8 (citing Winch v.

Keeley, 1 T. R. 619, 99 Eng. Rep. 1284 (K. B. 1787)), says nothing about

the issue in this case. It is of course true that one has standing to sue

when the result of a favorable judgment will be the discharge of a debt

12 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

I do not take the majority’s point to be that the common-

law tradition supplies the answer to this question. As the

majority concedes, it was not until the 19th century that

“courts began to consider the specific question presented

here.” Ante, at 10. But even granting this starting point,

the Court’s recitation of the 19th-century tradition fails to

account for the deep divergence in practice regarding the

right of assignees with no stake in the substantive recov-

ery to maintain an action in court.

The majority concedes that “some States during this

period of time refused to recognize assignee-for-collection

suits,” ante, at 12, but that refusal was substantially more

widespread than the majority acknowledges. See Robbins

v. Deverill, 20 Wis. 142 (1865); Bostwick v. Bryant, 113

Ind. 448, 16 N. E. 378 (1888); Moses v. Ingram, 99 Ala.

483, 12 So. 374 (1893); Brown v. Ginn, 66 Ohio St. 316, 64

N. E. 123 (1902); Coombs v. Harford, 99 Me. 426, 59 A.

529 (1904); Martin v. Mask, 158 N. C. 436, 74 S. E. 343

(1912). These courts concluded that assignees having no

legal or beneficial interest to vindicate could not sue on

the assigned claims.

Several more States, including some enlisted by the

majority, only eventually recognized the right of assignees

for collection to sue after taking inconsistent positions on

the issue. In fact, the rule regarding assignees for collec-

tion only was so unsettled that the Kansas Supreme Court

reversed itself twice in the span of 19 years. Compare

Krapp v. Eldridge, 33 Kan. 106, 5 P. 372 (1885) (assignees

for collection only may sue as the real party in interest),

with Stewart v. Price, 64 Kan. 191, 67 P. 553 (1902) (as-

——————

or other legal obligation. The only legal obligation respondents seek to

discharge is the obligation to remit the proceeds of the litigation to the

payphone operators. But as explained above, a party lacking the

independent right to direct the disposition of the proceeds cannot

demonstrate the personal stake required to invoke the authority of an

Article III court. See supra, at 7.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 13

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

signees for collection only may not sue), with Manley v.

Park, 68 Kan. 400, 75 P. 557 (1904) (assignees for collec-

tion only may sue again). During this period, many other

courts reversed course on the flinty problem posed by

assignees for collection only. See Hoagland v. Van Etten,

23 Neb. 462, 36 N. W. 755 (1888), overruled by Archer v.

Musick, 147 Neb. 1018, 25 N. W. 2d 908 (1947); State ex

rel. Freebourn v. Merchant’s Credit Serv., Inc., 104 Mont.

76, 66 P. 2d 337 (1937), overruled by Rae v. Cameron, 112

Mont. 159, 114 P. 2d 1060 (1941).

The majority’s survey of 19th-century judicial practice

thus ignores a substantial contrary tradition during this

period. That tradition makes clear that state courts did

not regularly “entertai[n] suits virtually identical to the

litigation before us.” Ante, at 10. In reality, all that the

majority’s cases show is that the question whether assign-

ees for collection could maintain an action in court was

hotly contested—a live issue that spawned much litigation

and diverse published decisions. The confusion was much

remarked on by courts of this period, even those that

ultimately sided with the Court’s understanding of the

prevailing practice. See, e.g., Gomer v. Stockdale, 5 Colo.

App. 489, 492, 39 P. 355, 356 (1895) (“There is much con-

troversy in the various states respecting that almost uni-

versal code provision, that a suit must be prosecuted in

the name of the real party in interest”); Compton v. Atwell,

207 F. 2d 139, 140–141 (CADC 1953) (“[W]hether an

assignee for collection only is the real party in interest . . .

has produced a variance of judicial opinion” and “has so

divided other courts”).

Commentators have also called attention to the diver-

gent practice. As the majority notes, John Norton

Pomeroy observed that “there is some conflict” on the

question whether an assignee for collection obligated to

“account for the whole proceeds . . . is entitled to sue in his

own name.” Remedies and Remedial Rights §132, p. 159

14 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

(1876) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also M.

Ferguson, Comment, The Real Party in Interest Rule

Revitalized: Recognizing Defendant’s Interest in the De-

termination of Proper Parties Plaintiff, 55 Cal. L. Rev.

1452, 1475 (1967) (“Nowhere do the courts manifest more

confusion than in deciding whether an assignee for collec-

tion only is a real party in interest”); Note, 51 Mich. L.

Rev. 587, 588 (1953) (observing that “[t]here is, however,

little agreement among the courts as to the meaning and

purpose of [real party in interest] provisions” and noting

that they have been construed “to prevent the owner of the

bare legal title to a chose in action from suing”). Indeed,

notable legal commentators of the period argued against

permitting suits by assignees for collection. See, e.g., 1 J.

Kerr, Law of Pleading and Practice §586, pp. 791–792

(1919) (“[T]he party in whom the legal interest is vested is

not always the real party in interest. ‘The ‘real party in

interest’ is the party who would be benefited or injured by

the judgment in the cause . . . . The rule should be re-

stricted to parties whose interests are in issue, and are to

be affected by the decree”).

This unsettled and conflicting state of affairs is under-

standable given the transformation in the understanding

of the common-law prohibition on suits by assignees with

no beneficial interest. The immediate cause for this trans-

formation was the merger of law and equity, and the

creation of real party in interest provisions intended to

reconcile the two forms of actions. Allen v. Brown, 44

N. Y. 228, 231 (1870) (noting that New York code provision

allowing assignees to sue as the real party in interest

“abolishe[d] the distinction between actions at law and

suits in equity”); see ante, at 10. The fusion of law and

equity forced courts to confront the novel question of what

to do with assignees for collection only, who could not sue

at law in their own name, and who could not recover on a

bill in equity for the lack of any beneficial interest to

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 15

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

enforce. Were such assignees, under the new system, real

parties in interest who could bring suit? It is not surpris-

ing that courts took conflicting positions on this question,

a question for which the historical tradition did not pro-

vide an answer. Given this, it is difficult to characterize a

practice as showing what sort of cases and controversies

were “traditionally amenable to . . . the judicial process,”

Steel Co., 523 U. S., at 102 (emphasis added), when the

practice was a self-conscious break in tradition.

In Vermont Agency, by contrast, the Court relied on a

long and unbroken tradition of informer statutes that

reached back to the 14th century and prevailed up to the

“period immediately before and after the framing of the

Constitution.” 529 U. S., at 776. The Court noted that the

American Colonies “pass[ed] several informer statutes

expressly authorizing qui tam suits,” and that the First

Congress itself “enacted a considerable number of in-

former statutes.” Ibid. This tradition provided relevant

evidence of what the Framers in 1787 would have under-

stood the terms “case” and “controversy” to mean. See

Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 460 (1939) (opinion of

Frankfurter, J.) (the Article III “[j]udicial power could

come into play only in matters that were the traditional

concern of the courts at Westminster and only if they

arose in ways that to the expert feel of lawyers constituted

‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies’ ”).5

——————

5 The statutes from the American Colonies add nothing to the major-

ity’s historical argument. See ante, at 9–10. Exceptions (some created

by statute) to the general rule against assignments at law arose early

in the common-law period, including exceptions for executors and

administrators of estates, assignees in bankruptcy, negotiable instru-

ments, and assignments involving the sovereign. See 29 R. Lord,

Williston on Contracts §74.2, pp. 214–215 (4th ed. 2003). What none of

these exceptions provides for, however, are suits brought by assignees

for collection only—i.e., assignees who have no share in the substantive

recovery. Such assignees, as the majority acknowledges, did not attract

the attention of courts until the 19th century. See ante, at 10.

16 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

There is certainly no comparable tradition here. The

belated innovations of the mid- to late-19th-century courts

come too late to provide insight into the meaning of Article

III. Although we have sometimes looked to cases postdat-

ing the founding era as evidence of common-law tradi-

tions, we have never done so when the courts self-

consciously confronted novel questions arising from a

break in the received tradition, or where the practice of

later courts was so divergent. A belated and equivocal

tradition cannot fill in for the fundamental requirements

of Article III where, as here, those requirements are so

plainly lacking.

B

Nor do our own cases establish that we “long ago indi-

cated that assignees for collection only can properly bring

suit.” Ante, at 14. (If the majority truly believed that, one

would expect the cases to be placed front and center in the

Court’s analysis, rather than as an afterthought.) None

addressed the requirements of Article III, and so none

constitutes binding precedent. See Steel Co., supra, at 91

(“[D]rive-by jurisdictional rulings of this sort . . . have no

precedential effect”); Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 352, n.

2 (1996) (“[W]e have repeatedly held that the existence of

unaddressed jurisdictional defects has no precedential

effect”).

In Waite v. Santa Cruz, 184 U. S. 302 (1902), we ad-

dressed the then-existing statutory provision that barred

jurisdiction over suits “improperly or collusively made or

joined . . . for the purpose of creating a case cognizable or

removable under this act.” Id., at 325. We held that a

plaintiff who took legal title of multiple bonds “for pur-

poses of collection” could not satisfy the statute when the

bonds individually did not meet the amount in controversy

requirement. Ibid. The Court did not say that the “suit

could properly be brought in federal court,” ante, at 14, if

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 17

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

the only objection was the limitation placed on the plain-

tiff’s assignment; instead, the Court remarked that such a

limited assignment would not violate the statutory prohi-

bition on suits that are “improperly or collusively made or

joined,” Waite, supra, at 325.

In Spiller v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 253 U. S. 117

(1920), the plaintiff, secretary of the Cattle Raisers’ Asso-

ciation, sued to enforce an order of reparations issued by

the Interstate Commerce Commission, which found that

the defendant railroads had charged excessive shipping

rates to the members of the association. The question

before the Court was the validity of the lower court’s

ruling that the assignments to the plaintiff—which re-

served a beneficial interest in the assignors, the individual

members of the association—did not vest legal title in the

secretary “so as [to] authorize the commission to make the

award of damages in his name.” Id., at 134. We concluded

that the agency was authorized to issue the reparations

order in the name of the plaintiff because the assignments

were “absolute in form.” Ibid. We then concluded that

“beneficial or equitable title” was not necessary for the

plaintiff “to claim an award of reparation” and enforce

that award in his own name in court. Ibid. In other

words, the Court addressed merely the question whether

it was appropriate for a federal agency (not bound by the

constraints of Article III) to enter an award in the plain-

tiff’s name. In no way did the Court endorse the right of

an assignee for collection to sue as an initial matter in

federal court.

Nor did the Court address Article III standing require-

ments in Titus v. Wallick, 306 U. S. 282 (1939). There, we

found that an assignment “for purposes of suit,” where the

assignee had an obligation to account for the proceeds (in

part) to another, did not render the assignment invalid

under New York state law. Id., at 289. Thus, we held that

the Ohio courts had failed to give full faith and credit to

18 SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS CO. v. APCC SERVICES, INC.

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

an earlier, valid New York court judgment. Id., at 292. If

we had been presented with the Article III question, we

would likely have found it significant that the plaintiff-

assignee stood to take the balance of any recovery after

the proceeds were used to discharge the debts of the as-

signor (plaintiff’s brother) and the plaintiff’s wife. Id., at

286. But in any event, the Court’s conclusion that the

assignment was valid under New York law, where the

restrictions of Article III do not operate, does not support

the view that suits by assignees for collection are permis-

sible in federal courts.

C

When we have looked to history to confirm our own

Article III jurisdiction, we have relied on a firmly en-

trenched historical tradition that served to confirm the

application of modern standing principles. See Vermont

Agency, 529 U. S., at 774–778. The Court’s decision today

illustrates the converse approach. It relies on an equivo-

cal and contradictory tradition to override the clear appli-

cation of the case-or-controversy requirement that would

otherwise bar respondents’ suit.

But perhaps we should heed the counsels of hope rather

than despair. The majority, after all, purports to comply

with our Article III precedents, see ante, at 16–18, so those

precedents at least live to give meaning to “the judiciary’s

proper role in our system of government” another day.

Raines, 521 U. S., at 818. What is more, the majority

expressly and repeatedly grounds its finding of standing

on its conclusion that “history and precedent are clear”

that these types of suits “have long been permitted,” ante,

at 5, and that there is “a strong tradition” of such suits

“during the past two centuries,” ante, at 16, 19. This

conclusion is, for the reasons we have set forth, achingly

wrong—but at least the articulated test is clear and

daunting.

Cite as: 554 U. S. ____ (2008) 19

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting

Finally, there is the majority’s point that all this fuss

could have been avoided for a dollar, see ante, at 20—a

price, by this point, that most readers would probably be

happy to contribute. The price will be higher in future

standing cases. And when it is—when standing really

matters—it would be surprising if the Court were to look

to a case in which it did not.

I would vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and

remand for further proceedings.