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Wireless providers including T mobile, AT&T and Verizon have faced a number of lawsuits in recent years from women who claim retail employees stole personal images or videos from their phones while helping them with data transfers in the store.
Cases are usually dismissed when companies argue that they were unaware of the staff’s actions and are not liable because the employees were acting outside the scope of their duties. But that could soon change after a recent court ruling, legal experts told CNBC.
Now, the companies — not just store employees — could face liability in future litigation, which could lead them to address the hiring, training and data security practices that victims claim led to the breaches, the officials said. experts.
The latest lawsuit against AT&T was filed Monday in California court. A woman identified as Jane Doe alleged that an employee at a Los Angeles store stole her nude images and distributed them in February after she upgraded her iPhone and helped her transfer her data.
That case, filed by attorneys from the CA Goldberg law firm, now has a better chance of surviving and going to trial following an April court ruling against T-Mobile that involved a similar case in Washington brought by the same law firm . Judge Stanley Bastian, the judge overseeing T-Mobile’s case, ruled it could proceed after the company dismissed the lawsuit.
T-Mobile, like other phone companies, had argued that it had no knowledge of the employee’s actions and said he was acting outside the scope of his duties. But the judge ruled that the company could possibly be liable and ruled that the case should go forward.
The decision, characterized by the law firm as a “landmark” decision, is the first of its kind against a wireless company accused of negligence in hiring employees who allegedly stole sensitive customer data, the company said. It could affect the fate of future cases, including the lawsuit filed against AT&T on Monday, legal experts said.
“This ruling sets an important precedent, and we plan to continue to try to hold phone companies accountable for situations like this where their employees violate customer privacy during phone or other in-store transactions,” said Laura Hecht- Felella by CA Goldberg. one of the lead attorneys for both T-Mobile and the new AT&T case. “There are a lot of different ways they can try to prevent this from happening, and it’s clear that what they’re doing right now is not enough.”
Carrie Goldberg, the company’s founder, added that “the hope is not to attract more cases” but to encourage companies to have better safeguards.
“That’s what litigation does. It says you can be held liable for your negligence,” Goldberg said. “And obviously that will motivate phone companies to innovate around protecting security and privacy for consumers in their stores.”
AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment. T-Mobile declined to comment.
Allegations are mounting
In the case against AT&T, the woman filed a police report, which remains under investigation, according to the lawsuit.
At least six other similar allegations have been made against AT&T in the past either in civil lawsuits or in police reports, according to the complaint. The dispositions of these cases are unclear. The cases reflect at least a dozen more they allegedly have happened to other providerssuch as T-Mobile and Verizon, according to news reports.
Goldberg says she suspects that the cases that have been made public are “just the tip of the iceberg” and there are probably more that clients never identified.
“We suspect that the mobile shoplifting phenomenon is bigger than we realize,” Goldberg said.
“As a society, we trust these mobile carriers with all of our most private information,” Goldberg said. “And there’s really no limit to what their employees can steal from our phones and then share with the world.”
She added that her company has received “case after case” where customers claim phone shop employees have stolen their data. Goldberg said the issue affects all companies, making it an “industry-wide” concern.
Andrew Stengel, a New York attorney who specializes in cases involving the non-consensual disclosure of personal images, better known as revenge porn, discussed the T-Mobile Washington decision for CNBC. He said future cases, like the AT&T lawsuit, now have a better chance of surviving motions to dismiss and moving forward because lawyers will be able to point to that precedent in their arguments.
“It should make judges think twice or thrice before they dismiss a claim,” said Stengel, who has practiced similar case against T-Mobile in the past, but is not involved in the current litigation. “It should be able to give judges not only pause, but ammunition to agree.”
If lawsuits against wireless carriers related to the theft of personal images are allowed to proceed, they advance discovery, which Stengel likened to the “crown jewels” of a legal case.
During discovery, defendants must turn over documents related to the case that could reveal incriminating and incriminating information.
“There may be information that carriers will be required to disclose, which will increase liability in the future,” Stengel said. “If I were their lawyer, I would be very concerned about that.”
Stengel cautioned that while the Washington ruling may be “exciting,” it is not binding and judges in other jurisdictions may choose to ignore it.
Still, Goldberg expects the decision to have “impact.” He said it could prompt phone companies to finally make changes to prevent these kinds of abuses.
“We think the carriers are going to be a lot less cocky about what they can get away with,” Goldberg said. “If you’re a company that constantly hires rads who steal consumers’ most private, personal photos, then that’s the company’s fault.”
