(pictured:  an overdressed 1985 Motorola Cell Phone from Bulletz of Knowledge post Dress the Elderly Cell Phone)

For the business, rather than a strictly legal, analysis of the recent Ninth Circuit and other California rulings on the unconscionability of consumer arbitration clauses, see the excerpt and link to Business Week's article on the issue below.

Cell-Phone Contract Disputes Heat Up -- Court rulings in California could lead to changes in dispute clauses in wireless contracts and fuel class actions against carriers by Olga Kharif 


Read almost any cell-phone contract and you'll discover that the longest passage deals with dispute resolution. While seemingly important matters like billing get only one paragraph, Verizon Wireless devotes six paragraphs to dispute resolution. At AT&T (T), the dispute section takes up 10 fat paragraphs and states: "You agree that, by entering into this Agreement, you and AT&T are each waiving the right to a trial by jury or to participate in a class action."

The small print keeps expanding in response to an influx of court cases—at least 10 of them in California over the past few years—questioning a wireless carrier's right to block consumers from suing or filing class-action claims. In late June a California appeals court reaffirmed a lower court's order that (T-Mobile USA) could not enforce a clause requiring arbitration of disputes with customers. And on Aug. 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California ruled that AT&T's prohibition against subscribers banding together in class actions, "is unconscionable, and, thus, unenforceable."

Click here for the remainder of the article.