Class Action Challenges T-Mobile’s Terms of Use and Their Ban on Negative Reviews

T-Mobile removed to U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles a Dec. 20 class action filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in which five pro se plaintiffs challenge the lawfulness of T-Mobile’s terms of use and their prohibitions against expressing negative comments online about the company or its goods and services. T-Mobile denies all liability on the plaintiffs’ claims, denies that the plaintiffs could ever recover damages and denies that a court could ever certify a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, said the notice of removal Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00700). But assuming that the plaintiffs’ allegations are true for removal purposes only, their putative class claims put more than $5 million, exclusive of interest and costs, in controversy based on the damages they seek in the complaint, said the notice. “Because of the current power of the internet and social media platforms to publicize a company’s offerings of goods or services,” T-Mobile has “a significant incentive to minimize” the negative publicity it receives, including in the form of negative online reviews and comments, said the complaint. While conducting substantial business with California consumers, the terms that T-Mobile imposes on its customers “clearly violate” Section 1670.8 of the California Civil Code, it said.