Buy a Microsoft consumer product, and you won’t be allowed to join a class action suit against the company, even if you feel you’ve been harmed. That’s what the fine print on Microsoft’s new end user license agreement (EULA) says. Last week, Tim Fielden, assistant general counsel for Microsoft announced the details in a Microsoft blog. Microsoft knew the change wouldn’t go down well, which is why it chose to make the announcement just before Memorial Day weekend, when people are rarely paying attention to the news. Read more…
Class Actions Blog
Posts Tagged ‘AT&T’
Microsoft user agreements now ban class actions
AT&T settles class action lawsuit with DSL customers
A class action settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit against AT&T in the Court of Common Pleas For Cuyahoga County Ohio (styled Robert Schmidt v. AT&T and SBC Internet Services, Inc. d/b/a AT&T Internet Services Case No. 09-688788). The suit alleged that AT&T failed to deliver DSL Service to its customers at the speeds promised and that allegedly AT&T breached its contracts with and defrauded some of its customers by limiting the maximum data speed that some of its customers could obtain to a rate below the maximum rate for the plan the customer purchased. The settlement class includes current or former customers of AT&T who paid for DSL Service from AT&T between March 31, 1994 and January 27, 2012. Read more…
Two senators introduce bill to allow suits v. cell companies
Two senators introduced a bill on October 4, to prohibit wireless companies from having clauses in contracts that prohibit consumers from suing the companies because of hidden fees or other contract disputes.
Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Al Franken of Minnesota introduced the measure, which would ban the common practice of putting clauses in wireless phone and data contracts that require consumers to use binding arbitration in the case of a dispute. Read more…
AT&T: Motion to Move Wage & Hour Class Action to Florida denied
On September 12, 2011, a federal judge denied AT&T’s motion to move an at-home call center wage and hour class action lawsuit from California to Florida. Perry v. AT&T, Case No. C11-01488 is currently pending in the Northern District of California.
The class action complaint against AT&T Mobility and Arise Virtual Solutions was filed on March 28, 2011, alleging that the companies misclassified a class of At-Home Call Center employees as independent contractors. Read more…
A comment on AT&T v. Concepcion
Cliff Palefsky of McGuinn, Hillsman & Palefsky disputes the assertion that sending a case to arbitration has no impact on substantive rights; that faulty premise, he contends, underlies much of the Court’s arbitration jurisprudence. This article appears on Scotusblog.
The Supreme Court has told us repeatedly that judges do not create public policy. Public policy, they say, must emanate from the Constitution or a statute passed by Congress. Docket clearing is not a public policy and the FAA did not and could not create a public policy that conflicts with the express mandates of the Constitution. Read more…
Court denies motion to compel arbitration in DirecTV case
Subscribers of DirecTV that were assessed fees ranging from $100 to $500 for the early cancellation of their service filed a class action against DirecTV. The class action lawsuit alleges that these fees were illegal because DirecTV failed to inform subscribers that they were under any contractual obligation to maintain service for a given period of time (usually 18 months to two years) when they signed up for the service. Read more…
