Why you can't sue your wireless carrier in a class action

Matt Spaccarelli sued AT&T because, as he argued, AT&T had stopped offering him an unlimited data service. Instead, he said the company was slowing down his service when he used 1.5 GB to 2GB of data in a given month. Spaccarelli's service was "throttled" as a result of a new AT&T policy designed to curb heavy data usage by its unlimited subscribers. But thanks to a Supreme Court decision in 2011, which upheld a company's right to include a clause in contracts prohibiting subscribers from suing the company as part of a class action, Spaccarelli had only two options when fighting AT&T's new policy: He could enter into an AT&T-funded arbitration program or file his suit in small claims court. Spaccarelli opted for small claims court. What this meant for AT&T was that instead of facing a multimillion dollar lawsuit, which represented thousands of disgruntled subscribers, the company only had to deal with a single subscriber and damages of $850. Even though AT&T lost its case and paid Spaccarelli the court-awarded damages, the company was not forced to change its throttling policy. And in fact, it still slows down service on what it considers its heaviest data customers, even though AT&T still calls the plan "unlimited."