We have obtained a favorable ruling on behalf of a class of plaintiffs in litigation against BB&T bank for charging excessive and unfair overdraft fees. The lawsuit was brought as a class action, but BB&T's account and cardholder agreements included arbitration clauses and class bans, and BB&T argued that the court should force the plaintiffs to proceed in individual arbitration. We claimed that the arbitration clauses were not valid contracts because of how they were presented, the fact that customers had no meaningful choice but to agree, and the unconscionable terms which required customers to abandon their legal rights and subjected them to excessive costs. The bank argued that after a recent case decided by the United States Supreme Court, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, the court deciding our case could not hold that these arbitration clauses were unconscionable and illegal.
After John Hughes of Wallace & Graham argued the matter before the court, and after follow-up arguments by co-counsel, the judge decided the issue in favor of our clients, allowing them to proceed with a class action in an order filed September 1, 2011. The judge addressed the Concepcion decision, noting that although the particular arbitration clause at issue in that case was not unconscionable, the ruling does not excuse judges from analyzing whether other arbitration clauses are unconscionable. He decided on all the facts before him that the BB&T arbitration clause was unconscionable and therefore unenforceable, noting in particular the provisions that shifted costs of litigation to the customers and allowed BB&T to deduct such costs directly from customers' accounts. He found that the BB&T arbitration clauses were "so unconscionable that no decent, fair-minded person would view the ensuing result without being possessed of a profound sense of injustice" and that they were therefore unenforceable.
If you believe you have a claim that could become a class action, please feel free to contact Wallace & Graham class action attorneys John Hughes and Aaron Goss at 1-800-849-5291 for a free consultation. Our class action attorneys have significant experience dealing with arbitration clauses and other issues that can make or break a class action, as well as various consumer rights issues.
