Timberland inks $7M settlement in class action over texting: Case one of many involving text messaging

A $7 million settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit accusing Timberland Co. and others of illegally sending unsolicited advertising text messages to cellular subscribers. The development represents but the tip of a litigious iceberg in which the number of texting antitrust class actions against industry continues to climb and scores of lawsuits similar to the Timberland case remain pending.
Indeed, texting appears to be quickly replacing early termination fees as the big magnet for mass litigation against the mobile-phone industry.
U.S. District Judge Wayne Anderson is scheduled to hold a final approval hearing Dec. 18 in Chicago in the class action brought by Jeffrey Weinstein and Lei Shen against Timberland, Airit2me Inc., GSI Commerce Inc. and Mobile Information Corp. in 2005. If the settlement is approved, each member of the class would be entitled to $150 each from the settlement fund.
In other venues around the country, national wireless operators are facing numerous class-action lawsuits in connection with added charges on consumers’ bills for allegedly unauthorized services, including texting. The most recent suit was filed late last month against Sprint Nextel Corp. in U.S. District Court in Kansas City.
While the filing of class-action lawsuits targeting unwanted text advertising has slowed, the number of antitrust class-action suitsis mushrooming against AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA Inc. and, to a lesser extent, Alltel Communications L.L.C. The latter suits claim the wireless industry conspired to increase the price of a text message from 10 cents to 20 cents each over the past three years.
Three new antitrust texting suits have been filed against the cellular industry in federal courts in Mississippi and Illinois, bringing to eight the number of class-action complaints against major wireless providers in less than two weeks. The flurry of class-action antitrust litigation against industry followed Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl’s (D-Wis.) Sept. 9 announcement that he was looking into the matter.
Kohl asked CEOs of the four national wireless carriers to respond to written questions by Oct. 6.