AT&T: Suing its own customers

AT&T has filed suit against at least eight of their wireless customers who are opposed to the company’s attempts to buy T-Mobile.

The lawsuits, filed in federal court, include a request for an injunction against what AT&T calls abuse of the court with “meritless” arbitration claims being filed as a class action lawsuit.

Stop the Cap! earlier covered the efforts by law firm Bursor & Fisher to seek an end to the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, and payments of up to $10,000 in damages per customer if the merger goes through.

Now AT&T is pushing back.

Bursor and Fisher’s legal theory is that customers can use the arbitration provisions found in AT&T’s terms and conditions to seek relief against the company for what attorney Scott Bursor suggests will be a future of higher wireless prices for AT&T Wireless customers.

AT&T’s suit seeks to dispel that legal theory:

“Defendant is among the 1,000 (and counting) ATTM [AT&T Mobility] customers whom the law firm of Bursor & Fisher P.A. (‘Bursor’) has solicited and now claims to have recruited as part of a scheme to pressure ATTM into settling meritless claims.”

“Bursor and Faruqi’s [another attorney partnering with Bursor & Fisher’s lawsuit] scheme plainly violates the arbitration agreement between ATTM and defendant. Among other limitations on the scope of arbitration, the agreement expressly precludes ‘any form of representative or class proceeding’ and permits claims for injunctive relief ‘only in favor of the individual party seeking relief and only to the extent necessary to provide relief warranted by that party’s individual claim.'”

Bursor

AT&T may have gotten serious after losing an appeal to the American Arbitration Association to block administration of the cases.  In a rare move, the Association overrode AT&T’s objection and started processing cases last week.  Arbitration has never been considered consumer-friendly, because the arbitration industry is heavily dependent on businesses and their arbitration agreements to survive.

AT&T’s general counsel stated the arbitration actions will “place a $39 billion merger in jeopardy.”

Bursor and Fisher appeared to be unintimidated by AT&T and suggested a wireless company willing to sue its own customers is “desperate.”

“AT&T now realizes it faces a substantial likelihood that one or more of these arbitration [cases] will indeed stop the takeover from happening,” Bursor said. “But AT&T’s legal arguments are frivolous. We expect the courts will reject AT&T’s arguments and dismiss these cases very quickly.”