The Washington Court of Appeals ruled a consumer’s billing suit a...
The Washington Court of Appeals ruled a consumer’s billing suit against AT&T Wireless qualified as a certified class action. The ruling was on a consumer suit alleging AT&T from 1998 to 2003 unlawfully billed a “universal connectivity charge” as…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
a government-mandated tax when it actually was recovering an overhead cost of AT&T’s assessment to support the federal universal service fund. The suit (Case No. 57523-6-I) alleged AT&T violated state consumer protection laws by misleading consumers into thinking the fee was a tax and violated contracts by increasing the fee without notice. Litigation so far was about whether the case should be tried as a class action. A state trial court had rejected class action status, saying plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a likelihood that all or most AT&T subscribers were deceived, and that class action status would provide a windfall to customers who had paid the fee without complaint. The appeals court, however, said deceptions in trade are unlawful in all transactions, regardless of whether an individual customer notices, so it’s enough for class-action status to show some customers were deceived into thinking the fee was a tax. The court remanded the case to the lower court for trial as a class action.