Class Action Proposal Ridiculed by Commenters
A proposal for the FCC to handle class action complaints was met with scorn, as commenters called the request “impractical,” “unnecessary,” “unlawful,” “unrealistic,” and “unworkable.” No one spoke in favor of the proposal, made in July by Solvable Frustrations (SFI), a recently formed online social network that collects customer complaints. SFI had said an FCC class complaint procedure could be an “excellent and efficient tool to address unlawful acts by carriers” (http://xrl.us/bntee2).
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SFI’s attempts to portray its request as advancing the public interest belie its true nature as “little more than a self-serving vehicle for advancing SFI’s private interests,” AT&T said (http://xrl.us/bntefg). Longstanding commission precedent “uniformly and unambiguously rejects agency class actions” as inconsistent with the private remedy portions of the Communications Act, the telco said.
Even if the commission wanted to impose the “unnecessary burden” of class actions on the administrative process, it lacks statutory authority to do so, Verizon said (http://xrl.us/bntegs). The commission’s rules already provide procedures to remedy specific violations, and “sufficient flexibility” to let the commission address generic questions, Verizon said. “There is nothing to be gained by creating an additional forum in which to bring class actions, and the complexities and demands of such actions would divert the Commission’s limited resources from more important policy goals,” Verizon said.
The federal courts can hear class action lawsuits for violations of the Act under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the process there is “superior,” USTelecom said (http://xrl.us/bntegw). The courts are experienced in handling class action litigation; the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau is “unequipped” and the commission has only one remaining administrative law judge, the association said. “Petitioners offer no reason why the existing procedures of the federal courts are insufficient or what public policy benefits would be realized from creating a whole-cloth redundant bureaucracy for such complaints,” USTelecom said.
The proposed rule would be “without precedent,” said CTIA (http://xrl.us/bnteh7). “No agency has ever presided over class claims against private parties or purported to bind absent class members.” The proposal would also violate due process because it fails to provide proper notice, lacks an opt-out mechanism, deprives “millions of private parties” of a jury, limits discovery to such a point that it “would jeopardize the ability to litigate the dispute,” and makes no mention of a review mechanism, CTIA said. “The result would be a Chimera that combines the worst possible attributes of EEOC [U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] class actions and civil class actions."
SFI’s website declares itself an “interactive resource for monetary recourse,” urging visitors to “start complaining” by filling out a form on its beta site (http://xrl.us/bntehi). A section detailing the “latest complaints” shows no complaints received later than February, and only two complaints total received about telecom companies. Its frequently-asked questions page says “coming soon.”