Text messaging lawsuits multiply: Agency likely to combine filings at one U.S. District Court

It’s official. The plaintiffs’ bar smells blood.
The mobile-phone industry suddenly finds itself under siege over rising text messaging prices; there are now five different class-action antitrust lawsuits against the nation’s largest wireless carriers over the issue.
The growth followed Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl’s (D-Wis.) announcement that he was looking into the matter. And that’s not counting a slew of consumer class-action lawsuits top cellular carriers face over extra charges for text messages and other content that subscribers claim they didn’t authorize.
The class-action antitrust lawsuits contributing to the texting tsunami are playing out in federal courts in Illinois, Ohio, Kansas and, now, Texas.
Where is all the antitrust litigation against the wireless industry headed? As a procedural matter, the next likely stop is the Judicial Panel Multidistrict Litigation, a body created by Congress that consolidates similar suits and transfers them to a single U.S. District court for further proceedings.
The filing to date of five antitrust class-action lawsuits in various federal courts further raises the financial stakes and legal exposure for AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA Inc. and, in one case, Alltel Communications L.L.C.
One of the first class-action antitrust texting lawsuits brought against the four national wireless carriers in Illinois federal court attracted nationwide media attention. But that suit – which alleges conspiracy among top wireless providers to increase the price of text messages over the past three years from 10 cents to 20 cents each – turned out just to be the beginning.
The four additional antitrust class-action texting lawsuits identified by RCR Wireless News strongly suggest the mobile-phone industry has a much bigger legal problem on its hands. At a minimum, the swiftly materializing antitrust class-action lawsuits appear to signal that trial lawyers across the country believe they have zeroed in on a legal vulnerability among service providers in the $143 billion mobile-phone industry, and that those plaintiffs’ attorneys may very well decide to pool resources to do battle against well-heeled cellular operators in the courtroom.
All told, the mushrooming of antitrust and billing class-action lawsuits against top cellular operators has begun to take on the appearance of the kind of massive litigation on early termination fees that resulted in settlements and court judgments costing wireless carriers tens of millions of dollars.
All five antitrust texting lawsuits against the industry, which all include essentially the same arguments, were filed shortly after Kohl announced a probe earlier this month of text message price hikes by top wireless operators in recent years. Kohl has asked the CEOs of the four national wireless carriers to respond to written questions by Oct. 6.
In addition to the five antitrust lawsuits and Kohl’s investigation, national wireless operators face a slew of class-action lawsuits on unexpected monthly charges on consumers’ bills for allegedly unauthorized services, including texting. The most recent suit was filed late last month against Sprint Nextel in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.
Texting constitutes an increasingly important revenue stream for cellular operators. According to mid-year figures by industry association CTIA, 75 billion text messages are sent every month. Overall, CTIA said wireless operators generate $27.5 billion a year from wireless data, a big chunk of which is generated by text messages.