Citing the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the AT&T case that upheld AT&T’s customer arbitration agreements, a federal judge in California upheld Zynga’s arbitration agreements and blocked the class action lawsuit, according to a report at mediapost.com.
The Zynga lawsuit stems from allegations that the online gaming company tricks users into free trial subscriptions of products that are anything but free. The lead plaintiff said Zynga charged over $300.00 to her debit card, which she did not pre-approve. There may have been truth to her allegations, as Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said that he “did every horrible thing in the book” to grow revenues.
However, the U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California said the AT&T decision required her to enforce Zynga’s arbitration clause and end the class action lawsuit. Despite the end to the class action case, the judge said the plaintiff could pursue individual claims against the two companies that helped Zynga develop the misleading advertisements.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in AT&T coupled with its recent ruling in Wal-Mart, which broke-up the largest attempted class action in history, has some experts thinking the Court raised the bar for class action status.
Colson Hicks Eidson – Florida attorneys