United States Ninth Circuit

In a class action claiming that a telephone company's offer of a "free" phone to anyone who signed up for its service was fraudulent to the extent the phone company charged the new subscriber sales tax on the retail value of each "free" phone, denial of defendant's motion to compel arbitration is affirmed where an arbitration clause's "premium" payment in the event of an arbitral award in favor of a customer did not prevent the clause from being unenforceable under California law.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/28/2009
• Published 10/28/2009

Judges

• BEA, Circuit Judge:, Before:  MARY M. SCHROEDER, STEPHEN REINHARDT and CARLOS T. BEA, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Donald M. Falk, Mayer Brown LLP, Palo Alto, CA, for the defendant-appellant., Kirk B. Hulett, Dennis Stewart, and Sarah Pickeral Weber, Hullet Harper Stewart, LLP, San Diego, CA;  Craig M. Nicholas, Matthew B. Butler, and Alex M. Tomasevic, Nicholas & Butler, LLP, San Diego, for the plaintiffs-appellees.