iPhone Customers Fight to Keep Apple, AT&T Class Action Lawsuit Alive

iPhone Customers Fight to Keep Apple, AT&T Class Action Lawsuit Alive

By Matt O’Donnell

iPhone customers are still fighting to keep a four-year-old class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T alive that accuses the companies of illegally restricting their choices of phone carrier, urging a federal judge to let them pursue their claims.

The 2007 Apple and AT&T class action lawsuit alleges the companies illegally controlled consumer choices by forcing iPhone buyers to sign up for AT&T. A San Jose federal judge certified their class action last year, but it has failed to progress further as Apple and AT&T “actively and exhaustively” try to block the case from proceeding.

In their latest move to block the case, AT&T and Apple said earlier this month that the iPhone class action lawsuit should be arbitrated and the Class should be decertified because the “entire theory rests on a single, unified course of conduct.”

An attorney representing the plaintiffs, however, countered their motion to dismiss with a brief that said the iTunes Terms of Service agreement requires plaintiffs to bring their claims against Apple in court, and not by arbitration. Because of this, Apple has no basis to demand individual arbitration, attorney Rachele Rickert said.

Rickert also argued that Apple waived its right to arbitrate “by actively and exhaustively litigating this case in this court and in the Ninth Circuit for the past four years without asserting any right to demand individual arbitrations with plaintiffs.”

“When ATTM chose to litigate this case in court rather than pursue its appellate rights under the FAA [Federal Arbitration Act], ATTM abandoned any right it may have to demand individual arbitrations with plaintiffs, and it may not move again to compel arbitration after years of vigorous litigation in court,” Rickert wrote.

Rickert also argued that Apple and AT&T’s motion to decertify the Class is “nonsensical.”

“The Class definition includes the requirement that Class Members enter into a two-year agreement with ATTM merely as a convenient way to identify which iPhone customers were participants in the aftermarket and thus harmed by defendants’ wrongdoing.” 

Rickert further said that the issue of what customers knew or didn’t know about Apple and AT&T’s “secret agreement to monopolize the iPhone voice and data aftermarket can be determined on a class-wide basis.”

The case is In Re Apple & AT&TM Antitrust Litigation, Case No. C 07-05151 JW, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.