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CBC reports that a Canadian man has taken the giant Bell Canada corporation to small claims court after they tried to increase his cable and internet prices despite the phone salesperson promising a fixed price for twenty four months.
The sales agent told (David) Ramsay he could get Bell's Fibe TV and internet services "for $112.90 a month for 24 months" and then said he'd get an "email confirmation of everything that was just discussed."
But when the email arrived, it said prices were actually "subject to change" and that Bell was planning to increase its price for internet service by $5, two months later.
Ramsey, who was self represented, argued that he had a verbal contract with Bell. The judge agreed and ordered Bell to pay Ramsay $1,110 to cover the cost of damages, his time, inconvenience and miscellaneous costs. In the lead up to the trial Bell made two attempts to buy him off with offers of $300, then $1000, but insisted on a non-disclosure agreement. Ramsay refused, hoping that a successful case would lead to many other long-suffering Canadians to launch similar suits.
In Canada Bell, Telus, and Rogers control most of the telephone, wireless, and cable markets, as well as most television, radio, and publishing. Canadians pay among the highest prices of any country for what most people consider some of the worst service.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday May 01 2018, @01:28PM (2 children)
It's actually quite easy to win in small claims.
Most of the time, it's not worth paying a lawyer to even turn up to defend such claims.
I'm not at all sure that it's precedent-setting, that takes a much bigger lawsuit, but it's certainly cheap for them to offer $300, $1000 and then pay $1,100 than to bill a lawyer for even a couple of hours, I should think.
People SHOULD take things to small claims more often. I've barely had to threaten it in the past to get better offers/service from companies (strangely, they are vehement about threatening me with lawsuits but never want to actually get that far when I say "Okay, bring it on, because if you don't, I'll file in small claims for myself anyway").
And I wouldn't sign an NDA for a court case for the world. No way, either I'm wrong, or I'm right, and it'll be on public record. I wouldn't get that far if I wasn't already accepting of that.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:43PM (1 child)
A particular court's ruling only binds lower courts. Since this is the lowest court there is no binding precedent.
However, there is a "precedent" in the sense of "this shit happened before" and if someone brings a similar case with similar arguments, then until there is more relevant case law, the court is likely to look at this decision when deciding what to do.
If there ends up being multiple inconsistent rulings then an appeals court will eventually hear one of the cases and hopefully settle the matter.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday May 01 2018, @06:13PM
I don't know. An appeal from a small claims court sounds rather unlikely, and the appellate court needs to agree to accept the case. I don't think they're required to take the case.
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