Century Tel of Alabama, LLC, and Qwest Communications Company, LLC v. Dothan/houston County Communications District…

Summary

The court held that the 2012 amendments to the Emergency Telephone Service Act amended, rather than repealed, the preexisting local 911-fee provisions and therefore did not eliminate local districts’ rights to recover fees accruing before October 1, 2013. It also held that the Act expressly authorizes local emergency-communications districts to bring civil actions necessary to enforce telephone providers’ duties to bill and collect those fees. Justice Murdock, concurring in the result, would have treated the provisions as repealed but would have preserved the districts’ claims under the vested-rights exception.