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The purpose of this website is to provide information related to the lawsuit known as Cell Phone Termination Fee Cases, J.C.C.P. No. 4332 pending in Alameda County Superior Court. The Court has allowed the lawsuit to be a class action on behalf of all persons who had a wireless telephone personal account with Verizon Wireless, Sprint and/or Nextel with a California area code and a California billing address who were charged and/or paid an early termination fee from July 23, 1999 to March 18, 2007.
The ETF case against Sprint Nextel, Ayyad v. Sprint Spectrum, L.P., concerns two classes of plaintiffs. The first, the so-called Payer Class, was defined as
"All persons who had a wireless telephone personal account with Sprint with a California area code and a California billing address who were charged and/or paid a flat fee early termination fee from July 23, 1999, to March 18, 2007, including all such persons who, on or before March 18, 2007, were charged and/or paid a flat-fee early termination fee under a Nextel iDEN contract where the contract was initiated on or after August 12, 2005. (hereinafter, the 'Payer Class')."
The claims of the Payer Class were tried to judgment in the California Superior Court. After more than five years of litigation and a full trial on the merits, on December 4, 2008, Judge Bonnie Sabraw issued a statement of decision in this action finding that Sprint Nextel's flat early termination fees (ETFs) are illegal and enjoined Sprint Nextel from enforcing them. See 12/4/08 Statement of Decision at 1:19-23 ("Because the liquidated damage provision is invalid, the Court enjoins Sprint from attempting to collect the unpaid flat ETFs and requires Sprint to provide this decision to third parties owners of Sprint's accounts receivable that might include ETFs."). Specifically, the Court found that Sprint's, Nextel's, and post-merger Sprint Nextel's ETFs violate Civil Code § 1671(d), the CLRA, the UCL unlawful and unfair prongs, and also found in favor of the Ayyad plaintiffs on their common law claims for unjust enrichment and money had and received. The Court also ruled that Sprint's defenses based on federal preemption and alternate means of performance were meritless. In other words, the Court ruled in favor of plaintiffs on each and every one of plaintiffs' affirmative claims, and ruled against Sprint on each and every one of Sprint's defenses to those claims. After a full trial on the merits, the central issue in this case has been resolved. Sprint's ETFs are illegal. Accordingly, on December 24, 2008, the Court entered a Judgment in favor of the Payer Class on each and every one of that class's claims.
In addition to the Payer Class, there is a second class that has been certified in the Ayyad case - the so-called "Subscriber Class." It is defined as follows:
"All persons who are parties to a Sprint customer agreement with a flat early termination fee for a personal cell phone account with a California area code and a California billing address."
See 12/19/08 Order Granting Plaintiffs' Motion For Certification Of Subscriber Class. If you paid or were charged an ETF by Sprint Nextel on or after March 19, 2007, or if you have had a Sprint Nextel calling plan with a flat ETF, you are a member of the Subscriber Class. The Payer Class and Subscriber Class claims were all pleaded in the same complaint, in the same action. The operative complaint is the Third Consolidated Amended Complaint [Early Termination Fees] Against Sprint Defendants, filed June 27, 2005, in Case No. RG03121510, Ayyad v. Sprint Spectrum, L.P.
For additional information regarding this lawsuit, you can view the Notice of Pendency of Class Action and various case documents posted on this website.
This website may be updated as new information becomes available.
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