Courts Reject Tech Corporation Bans on Class Action Suits

Frosty Piss writes "Class action waivers included in cell phone companies' contracts with customers are invalid in Washington State because they violate the state's Consumer Protection Act, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. Five plaintiffs accused Cingular of overcharging customers between $1 and $40 per month in roaming and hidden charges. Cingular had an arbitration clause that required individual arbitration and prohibited class action litigation or class action arbitration. From the article: 'In another class action-related ruling issued Thursday, the high court unanimously ruled in favor of a couple that filed a class action suit against America Online, Inc., claiming the Internet provider created and charged them for secondary membership accounts that they didn't want.'"

T-Mobile has the same clause.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of those wacky people who actually reads the contract before signing. T-Mobile has a similar clause, requiring me to give up the right to both individual and class-action law suits in favor of arbitration.

Re:Do class action suits ever benefit the consumer

[Shajenko42]

The biggest complaint about the binding arbitration nonsense is that the company making the contract selects who will do the arbitration, and if they lose too many cases, fire them.

In essence, you have to take up the complaint you have with the company with the company itself, and they're hardly unbiased. And I'm sure they would require that the arbitrations happen on their time table, one on one only, no lawyers allowed on the customer's side.

Re:Just a reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

verily so in Wisconsin. The burden of establishing the meaning of a faulty contract is placed on the party that drafted the contract. If you just sign, you are less at fault than if you contribute to the language (or lack thereof) in the contract.

Re:Do class action suits ever benefit the consumer

[db32]

Yeah...because all those class action lawsuits that SBC faced and lost over various sheisty practices over their early DSL offerings did SOOO much to help us all out get honest deals on DSL from AT&T now that they have all been allowed to remerge together. The people who "won" got all of a few bucks in a check that came almost a year later... I got more bang for my buck just griping at them up the chain for a few hours until I was eventually credited 6 months free DSL for their various screwups. Course it was 6 months of free crappy DSL that still didn't meet what I was promised, but at least it was free and lasted long enough for new competitors that weren't total screwups to enter the market. I have not had Telco direct provided DSL in 8 years because of that.

Re:Limiting class-action suits

[Evilest Doer]

If the companies pass on too much of the settlement cost onto the consumers themselves, they will lose to their competitors.

Thank you. This is what the corporate shills on television and radio don't understand (well, actually they probably understand, but they will never openly say it). A rise in taxes or an assessment of fines for illegal business practices does not translate into a direct increase in consumer costs since, in a healthy marketplace, competition will help set the price. What taxes and fines eat into to a much greater degree are the profits that the owners, CEO's, et cetera wind up being able to take home (which is why shills are hired in the first place).