Hagens Berman: T-Mobile Loses Important Battle in Cell Phone Text Messaging Case |
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By: Hagens Berman Posted: 2008-07-20 06:24:02 |
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T-Mobile USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), lost an important ruling earlier this week when a U.S. District Court judge denied its motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of disgruntled T-Mobile subscribers, claiming the Bellevue-based company charges them -- and millions of T-Mobile customers -- for unsolicited text messages.
According to the complaint, customers have no way to disable the phones from receiving text messages, often in the form of spam, and are forced to pay between 10 and 15 cents for every message. The court's ruling allows the case, filed on Oct. 19, 2007, to move forward. "This ruling is a big win for T-Mobile customers and we're looking forward to presenting our case to the court," said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, the firm representing the plaintiffs. Currently, T-Mobile customers have few options for avoiding the charges for unwanted text messages, the complaint states. Customers can either continue receiving charges or terminate their cellular service contract before completion, which can result in early termination fees as high as $200. "We don't believe either option is tenable for the company's 27 million subscribers," continued Berman. "It is noteworthy that other carriers have found a way to allow customers to disable this function." According to named plaintiff Marco Zaldivar, in addition to charging him for receipt of unwanted text messages, the company also failed to highlight this practice in his service contract. Zaldivar claims that nowhere did T-Mobile advertising include the fact that the company charges customers for all incoming messages. He alleges that both online and in-store T-Mobile marketing materials only described text messaging as an optional service for an additional monthly fee. Judge Richard Jones thwarted T-Mobile's attempt to dismiss the case, denying the company's arcane legal argument that the complaint filed against them contained flaws in the way it made certain allegations. To follow the case in more detail, please consult the following site: http://www.hagens-berman.com/Tmobile. About Hagens Berman The law firm of Hagens Berman, formally known as Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, is based in Seattle with offices in Chicago, Cambridge, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco. Since the firm's founding in 1993, it has developed a nationally recognized practice in class-action and complex litigation. Among recent successes, HBSS has negotiated a pending $300 million settlement as lead counsel in the DRAM memory antitrust litigation; a $340 million recovery on behalf of Enron employees which is awaiting distribution; a $150 million settlement involving charges of illegally inflated charges for the drug Lupron, and served as co-counsel on the Visa/Mastercard litigation which resulted in a $3 billion settlement, the largest anti-trust settlement to date. HBSS also served as counsel in a $850 million settlement in the Washington Public Power Supply litigation and represented Washington and 12 other states in lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in the largest settlement in the history of litigation. For a complete listing of HBSS cases, visit http://www.hbsslaw.com. CONTACTS: Steve Berman (206) 623-7292 Hagens Berman |
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