Courts Reject Tech Corporation Bans on Class Action Suits

Posted by Zonk on Friday July 13, 2007 @03:52AM from the that's-going-to-get-ugly-fast dept.

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.'"

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Re:Do class action suits ever benefit the consumer by Shajenko42 · 2007-07-13 05:26 · Score: 3, Informative

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.