On March 30, 2007, CMES, Inc. was performing excavation work in Stone Mountain, Georgia, when, at around 9:41 a.m., it accidentally severed an underground fiber-optic cable owned by MCI Communications Services, Inc. The severance rendered the cable incapable of transmitting telecommunications traffic. According to MCI, the severance caused 568,000 switched calls to be blocked and provoked 242 complaints from customers whose service was interrupted. Further communications disruption would have resulted except that MCI had spare restorative capacity that it had previously installed for $6.4 million. MCI Field Operations identified the location of the severance by 10:00 a.m., the first optical system was restored by 1:16 p.m., 95 of the transmission systems on the severed cable were back up by 3:45 p.m., and all traffic impacting systems on the cable were restored by 5:42 p.m. Thus, the severed cable was back to full capacity usage in about eight hours.
Due to MCI’s spare restorative capacity, it did not need to rent substitute capacity from any other carrier during the cable’s downtime, and, in fact, there is no such market for renting optical carriers on an hourly basis. Although the severance impacted service, causing blocked calls and customer complaints, MCI has produced no evidence that it issued any customer refunds or credits, lost any customers, or lost any profits due to the severance. However, MCI sued CMES in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on theories of negligence and trespass, and sought damages consisting of the costs to repair the severed cable in the amount of $27,926.86, compensation in the amount of $362,468.10 for the loss of use of the cable during the time it took to repair it, and punitive damages. MCI based its amount of loss of use damages on the theoretical rental value of the full capacity of the severed fiber-optic cable for the approximately eight hours that it was being repaired. CMES moved for partial summary judgment on, among other things, the claim for the loss of use damages, contending that MCI cannot show any monetary loss because its service was only momentarily interrupted due to the spare restorative capacity and that estimating loss of use damages on a theoretical rental value would be improper. MCI responded that it should not be punished for having the foresight to install a backup system at considerable cost. The district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of CMES, holding that MCI could not recover loss of use damages. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit certified the following question to this Court:
