The U.S. Supreme Court made clear this week that, regardless of what the Constitution says about a consumer's right to sue, businesses are absolutely entitled to block people from banding together and taking a dispute to court.
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - On Monday, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California court must enforce DirecTV's arbitration agreement with customers in the state who claim they were illegally charged cancellation fees.
The nation's highest court, in a 6-3 ruling, sided with the satellite cable provider, which is now owned by AT&T.
Justice Stephen Breyer, who authored the majority decision, said the Federal Arbitration Act preempts the California Court of Appeal's interpretation of the company's contract.
The Supreme Court's ruling for DirecTV on binding arbitration language in customers' service agreements has little applicability in the real world, "but the consequences are profound" since it marks a landmark reversal of a state court decision on arbitration, on the grounds a state court misapplied state contract law, said Harvey Rosenfield, a founder of Consumer Watchdog.
California consumers who are angry about being hit with unexpected fees can be forced to air their complaints individually before an arbitrator rather than in a class-action lawsuit, under a decision handed down Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The justices by a 6-3 vote overturned a state ruling and threw out a class-action lawsuit against DirecTV over its termination fees for customers who canceled its service.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that satellite provider DirecTV can avoid a class action lawsuit in California over early termination fees and force customers into private arbitration hearings instead.
In a 6-3 opinion, the justices said that DirecTV's contracts can specifically prohibit customers from banding together to sue the company, even though California state law would allow such class action lawsuits to go forward.
The Supreme Court said Monday that a class-action suit against satellite TV provider DirecTV over early-termination fees cannot go forward, because such complaints must be settled by private arbitration hearings.
The court ruled 6 to 3 that its previous decisions on the subject mean that California consumers may not rely on a state law that would have allowed consumers the right to band together to sue.
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