Suddenlink Subscribers’ Court Claims Barred by Their Prior Arbitration Demands: Altice
Altice USA denies the three plaintiffs “have viable claims on the merits” in a May 8 class action challenging the fees and taxes they were charged as Suddenlink, now Optimum, internet subscribers (see 2305110004). So said Altice’s memorandum of law…
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Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00380) in U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia in Huntington in support of its motion to compel those claims to arbitration and to stay the litigation pending the outcome of that litigation. The class action seeks to hold Altice accountable under the West Virginia Consumer Credit Protection Act for the allegedly unlawful practice of “cramming its customers' bills with illegal fees and charges.” As a “threshold matter,” said Altice’s memorandum, the plaintiffs’ claims don’t belong in the Southern District of West Virginia. That’s because each plaintiff agreed to resolve all disputes with Suddenlink by arbitration “on individual basis,” it said. The Federal Arbitration Act requires the plaintiffs “to honor their obligations,” it said. The plaintiffs “previously recognized their obligation to arbitrate the very claims that they are now asserting in the complaint,” it said. Two months before filing their lawsuit, and represented by the same counsel, Benjamin Sheridan of Klein & Sheridan in Hurricane, West Virginia, each of the three plaintiffs sent Altice a separate arbitration-demand letter, said the memorandum. The plaintiffs’ “invocation” of arbitration precludes them by law “from turning around and pursuing the same claims in court,” it said. It’s “telling” that the complaint fails to mention the plaintiffs’ prior demands for arbitration, said the memorandum. The complaint instead indicates plaintiffs’ “about-face” is due to a decision denying Suddenlink’s motion to compel arbitration in another case, it said. But the other case predates the plaintiffs’ demands for arbitration, and therefore can’t “justify” their “implicit request” that the court should “disregard their prior demands,” it said.