Plaintiff John Newton, Sues ASTCA for Breach of Contract and Non-performance
Plaintiff, John Newton, a long-time resident of American Samoa, has been a contractor to produce telephone directories for the American Samoa Telecommunications Authority since 1999. However, due to difficulties in obtaining the listings with which to produce a new telephone directory, Plaintiff has filed a complaint against ASTCA for failing to supply him with the subscriber lists, as agreed upon, in a MOU that took effect in 2010, for five annual telephone directories to be printed for the years 2011-2015. Plaintiff states that this failure has resulted in him not being able to produce any telephone directories under the contract, and the defendant not providing any telephone directory for the people of American Samoa since 2008, under a prior contract.
This absence of a telephone directory goes against the policy mandates of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is the licensing authority under which ASTCA is allowed to operate its telephone service. The present Contract, which has a termination date of December 1, 2015, has been made impossible to perform even in part due to the defendant’s continued refusal to supply Plaintiff with its subscriber list. The plaintiff seeks damages for the breach of contract committed by the defendant.
Unfulfilled Contract: The Story of Defendant’s Refusal to Supply Plaintiff with Subscribers Lists
On December 1, 2010, Defendant entered into its fourth Contract with Plaintiff to publish five annual telephone directories in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 for its service to the people of American Samoa. This Contract was written by the in-house legal counsel of Defendant and signed by the Executive Director of Defendant ASTCA on November 30, 2010. It was submitted by Defendant to Plaintiff, who signed it on December 1, 2010. This Contract has a termination date of December 1, 2015. At the time the complaint was filed, there were only five months remaining on this Contract, which is insufficient time to prepare and complete a telephone directory. Accordingly, this Contract has been made impossible to perform even in a partial manner by Defendant ASTCA’s continued refusal to supply Plaintiff with its subscriber list.
In this Contract under Article 1 which was titled by Defendant as “ASTCA’s RESPONSIBILITIES”, Defendant ASTCA agreed as written that “ASTCA agrees to supply PPC with its subscriber listings in digital format” and further specified this format.
In the 13 years that ensued since the signing of this Contract, the Defendant has failed to provide Plaintiff its subscriber listings to be printed in a telephone directory in any format, despite Plaintiff’s incessant and insistent requests.
As a consequence, Plaintiff has produced no telephone directory under this Contract, and Defendant ASTCA has provided no telephone directory for the people of American Samoa since 2008. Nor indeed for the past 15 years, has there been a telephone directory available for this U.S. Territory. The reason for this added deficiency is that to Plaintiff’s knowledge, ASTCA solicited no contract for telephone directories for the years 2009 and 2010, and has not solicited a contract in any year up to the present.
The last telephone directory provided to the public of American Samoa by ASTCA was for the year 2008, and this 2008 directory was done by Plaintiff under a prior ASTCA contract. To the date of filing this Complaint, no telephone directory has been made available to the public since the year 2008. Its absence is clearly contrary to the policy mandates of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which is the licensing authority under which ASTCA is allowed to operate its telephone service.