On the first day of its 2008 term, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari in five telecom cases, leaving in place lower court decisions that allowed class action lawsuits to proceed against two wireless carriers, allowed a challenge of the Texas cable franchising law to proceed, upheld a ruling favorable to AT&T, Inc., in a Texas local competition proceeding, and upheld a ruling against EchoStar Corp. in a patent dispute with TiVo, Inc. T-Mobile Arbitration-Clause Cases: The court refused to review two T-Mobile USA, Inc., appeals of decisions ruling against the company's ban on class action lawsuits against the firm. The clauses are common in the arbitration portions of contracts of wireless service providers and other carriers, such as cable service providers. The high court denied two petitions for writs of certiorari filed by T-Mobile earlier this year that argued the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (San Francisco) erred in ruling that the arbitration provisions are not enforceable and that there is no federal preemption under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The cases are the latest such arbitration decisions the Supreme Court has refused to consider.
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