Comcast Faces Summary Judgment over Claims of Stolen Funds

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

With discovery complete, a New York man is asking a federal judge to decide a Comcast class action lawsuit in his favor based on the available evidence.

This past Tuesday, plaintiff Kevin Danow filed a motion for summary judgment against defendant Comcast Corp. Danow argues that the evidence revealed during discovery proves without question that as a matter of law, Comcast has been stealing money from a trust Danow inherited from his late stepfather.

Danow filed this Comcast class action lawsuit in November 2016 on behalf of the revocable living trust left to him by his late stepfather Morris Hitzig. The trust included a checking account, among other assets. Danow alleges that earlier in 2016, he discovered Comcast had been accessing that checking account and withdrawing funds.

Hitzig had been a subscriber to Comcast cable service at his condominium in Florida since 2005, and a 2008 subscriber agreement was apparently in effect at the time of his death in 2014.

After Hitzig died, Danow terminated his Comcast account and returned the company’s equipment. Comcast reassigned Hitzig’s account number to the condominium’s new owner.

Still, Danow claims, Comcast continued to send account statements to Hitzig’s address – statements showing that he owed no money to Comcast. Despite that zero balance, the company started pulling payments out of the trust’s checking account.

Danow says he himself has never been a Comcast subscriber, and none of the evidence revealed through discovery suggests otherwise. His motion for summary judgment dismisses a variety of legal arguments brought by Comcast that attempt to put him on the hook for his late stepfather’s Comcast account.

But according to Danow, his entire relationship with Comcast has consisted only of his efforts to close out Hitzig’s Comcast account and to complain about the improper withdrawals of funds from the trust’s checking account.

Danow’s motion also responds to Comcast’s attempt to renew its effort to have Danow’s claims deferred to private arbitration. Danow points out that since he is not a signatory to his stepfather’s subscriber agreement, he can’t be held to that agreement’s arbitration clause.

Since his claims arise out of an alleged theft committed about two years after Hitzig’s death, they cannot be derivative of any claims Hitzig would have had against Comcast from before his death, Danow argues. He also points out there is no basis for binding him to any obligations as a third-party beneficiary of Hitzig’s contract with Comcast.

Comcast also claims that Danow “allowed” the condominium owner’s association to continue to offer standard cable service after Hitzig’s death, and for that reason Danow should be subject to arbitration under Comcast’s subscriber agreement with the association. But as Danow points out, that agreement contains no arbitration clause.

Danow is represented by attorneys Richard A. Maniskas of Ryan & Maniskas LLP, and Laurence D. Paskowitz and Roy L. Jacobs of Paskowitz Law Firm PC.

The Comcast Illegal Charges Class Action Lawsuit is Keven Danow v. Comcast Corp., et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-06052, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.