AT&T Breach of Contract Suit Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

AT&T Breach of Contract Suit - Research Paper Example After Verizon AT & T mobility services is the second largest wireless data and voice carrier in the United States. American journal on wireless voice and data carriers, 2011, shows that the company gives its services to an estimated 95 million people nationwide. Summary of facts The plaintiff a customer of the defendants received an extra charge for his cell phone bill and from then on began to suspect the company was not doing things right. The plaintiff had subscribed for defendants offer low-end data plan. As per the plan he paid fifteen dollars per month for using 200 MB data for use in his i-Phone, which as the plaintiff claimed, he never surpassed. The plaintiff was however charged an extra 15 dollars in one of his monthly bills, for 23 MB data which was above his allotted 200. The plaintiff then started investigating the defendants. He hired an independent consulting firm to help him in the investigations. The investigations revealed that the defendant’s bill overstated systematically web server traffic by seven percent to fourteen percent for the i-Pad and i-Phone users. In some of the cases investigated it was found that that the web traffic could be even overstated by 300 percent. The consulting firm alleged to have taken a new i-phone and disabled all push notifications and the location services, did not configure to an email account and generally closed all the application. After ten days according to the defendant’s data plan the phone had allegedly used 2,292KB of data. The defendants denied the allegations. Proceedings and issue in the lower court The plaintiff on the same day he served the defendants with his law suit filed a motion for orders appointing as the interim co-lead counsel of the potential class (others affected by the overbilling). This was decided to be improper and premature and was denied. The court found the motion improper at that particular stage under the Federal Arbitration Act. This is because the defendants h ad already stated that he move the court seeking to compel the dispute to arbitration. In that case the plaintiff’s motion did not give the defendant time to determine whether the case should be taken to arbitration. The court founding was that the Federation Arbitration Act expressly precluded consideration of any matters of merits when arbitrarily had been raised. The defendant responded by filling a motion to compel arbitration of the dispute as per the terms of the arbitration provision in the wireless service agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant. The suits was filed in January was however stayed pending the Supreme Court’s ruling of in the conception case. After the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Conception Case, the complainant filed an amended complaint. The complaint included 5 causes of action. The main contentious issue at the hearing by the trial court was whether or not it was appropriate to compel the dispute between the parties to arbitra tion and stay of the case during arbitration. The defendant argued using the precedence of AT & T Mobility LLC v Conception and contended that the plaintiff could not in any way avoid arbitration. Lower court ruling and reasoning The trial court ruled in favour of the defendants and ordered that the matter be referred to arbitration. The plaintiffs appealed against this decision. In its ruling the court found that the contract governing the agreement between the defendant and the plaintiff contained an express provision referring any disputes between the