47 U.S.C. § 206
Section 206 · Carriers liability for damages
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 116 court decisions — leading case Alyeska Pipeline Service Company v. Wilderness Society (1975)
Most recently applied in Michael Terpin v. at and T Mobility LLC (September 2024)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 47 U.S.C. § 207 · 47 U.S.C. § 201 · 47 U.S.C. § 151
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In case any common carrier shall do, or cause or permit to be done, any act, matter, or thing in this chapter prohibited or declared to be unlawful, or shall omit to do any act, matter, or thing in this chapter required to be done, such common carrier shall be liable to the person or persons injured thereby for the full amount of damages sustained in consequence of any such violation of the provisions of this chapter, together with a reasonable counsel or attorney's fee, to be fixed by the court in every case of recovery, which attorney's fee shall be taxed and collected as part of the costs in the case.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Judgment and costs, see rule 54, Title 28, Appendix, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.