Opinion ID: 794138
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The position of other courts

Text: 172 There is support for this conclusion in the holdings of other courts. Although these courts — be they state courts or federal courts applying state law — have generally refused to compel arbitration on state unconscionability grounds, these decisions contain reasoning that mirrors our own. 22 These decisions emphasize that a class mechanism bar can impermissibly frustrate the prosecution of claims in any forum, arbitral or judicial. As the California Supreme Court has observed, class actions and arbitrations are, particularly in the consumer context, often inextricably linked to the vindication of substantive rights. Discover Bank v. Superior Court, 36 Cal.4th 148, 161, 30 Cal.Rptr.3d 76, 113 P.3d 1100 (Cal.2005). 173 In Ting v. AT&T, 319 F.3d 1126, 1130 (2003), the Ninth Circuit confronted an arbitration agreement in a consumer service agreement that barr[ed] customers from, among other things, pursuing claims against AT & T on a classwide basis. Deciding the case on the basis of California state unconscionability doctrine, the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's conclusion that the class-action ban violates California's unconscionability law on the basis of this persuasive reasoning: 174 [i]t would not have been economically feasible to pursue the claims in these cases on an individual basis, whether the case was brought in court or in arbitration. If the Legal Remedies Provisions contained in AT & T's new CSA had governed customers' rights in these situations, it is highly unlikely any of the claims would have been prosecuted. It is undisputed that the lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in these cases would not have taken them if the only claim they could have pursued was the claim of the individual plaintiff. The reasons for this are not hard to see. The actual damages sought by the named plaintiffs are relatively insubstantial.... Consequently, it would not make economic sense for an attorney to agree to represent any of the plaintiffs in these cases in exchange for 33 1/3 % or even a greater percentage of the individual's recovery. The lawyer would almost certainly incur more in costs and time charges just getting the complaint prepared, filed and served than she would recover, even if the case were ultimately successful. Simply put, the potential reward would be insufficient to motivate private counsel to assume the risks of prosecuting the case just for an individual on a contingency basis. While retaining counsel on an hourly basis is possible, in view of the small amounts involved, it would not make economic sense for an individual to retain an attorney to handle one of these cases on an hourly basis and it is hard to see how any lawyer could advise a client to do so. The net result is that cases such as the ones listed above will not be prosecuted even if meritorious. Thus, the prohibition on class action litigation functions as an effective deterrent to litigating many types of claims involving rates, services or billing practices and, ultimately, would serve to shield AT & T from liability even in cases where it has violated the law. 175 Ting v. AT & T, 182 F.Supp.2d 902, 918 (N.D.Cal.2002). 176 The parallels between the effect of the class action ban in Ting and the class mechanism bar in the Policies & Practices is impossible to ignore. If the class mechanism prohibition here is enforced, Comcast will be essentially shielded from private consumer antitrust enforcement liability, even in cases where it has violated the law. Plaintiffs' will be unable to vindicate their statutory rights. Finally, the social goals of federal and state antitrust laws will be frustrated because of the enforcement gap created by the de facto liability shield. 23 177