The Supreme Court is hearing a case that affects you but you haven’t heard about: AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion. The LA Times reports that if the Supreme Court rule in favor of AT&T, any business that issues a contract to customers would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits. The Times says this would “[take] away arguably the most powerful legal tool available to the little guy.”
Courts in California and elsewhere have ruled that bans on class-action lawsuits within a contract are unconscionable and contrary to public policy, but California says a lot of things that aren’t true and have no real constitutional grounding, so that’s not a whole lot of help.
My position is of course that I want to be able to sue whoever I want (when a valid wrong has taken place), but the logic and freedom side of my brain reminds me that this is not a ban on lawsuits at large – just a decision over whether a person has the right to agree not to sue a company.
As a company, I would of course want the right to say “you can only receive my service if you don’t sue me”, but as a consumer I want to have every service open to me while retaining the right to stick it to the man if something legit goes down – or just if some hippie douchebag is able to convince a hippie douchebag court that said corporation is evil and should pay for some grave injustice that is really nothing but a nitpick.
The details of this case make it all even stickier…
Vincent and Liza Concepcion sued AT&T in 2006 after signing up for wireless service that they’d been told included free cellphones. The Concepcions alleged that they and other Californians had been defrauded by the company because the phones actually came with various charges.
Well when you put it THAT way, hell ya they should have sued. What’s described here is a total scam. If they can prove it’s a total scam in court then they should get PAID. If they can’t then AT&T is off the hook. That’s how it SHOULD work but we all know the system isn’t as truth-based as it should be, which is what keeps me torn on the issue.
AT&T asked that the District court throw out the lawsuit because the contract the litigator signed said “if you sign this then you can’t fkkn sue us”, but California said that kind of ban violates state law and is not preempted by federal law SO it went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals where it was upheld, forcing AT&T to go ask the Supreme Court to step in.
Public Citizen’s Gupta said consumers can expect similar treatment from other companies if the Supreme Court rules in AT&T’s favor.
“If the court decides that the federal law trumps state law in this case, there’s no limit to what companies could do,” Gupta said. “All companies and employers would be able to put arbitration clauses in contracts that prevent people from joining class actions.”
Briefs supporting the right to class actions have been filed by a number of consumer groups and civil rights organizations, including the Consumer Federation of America and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
On the opposing side — that is, backing AT&T’s case — are other telecom companies, as well as such well-heeled corporate interests as the American Bankers Assn., the Financial Services Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The case is going on right now and probably won’t be decided until next year with no clue as to which way it will get decided, however T-Mobile, Verizon, Comcast and AT&T have all tried this argument in lower courts before and lost their cases.