Matt Spaccarelli sued AT&T in Ventura County Small Claims Court and won!  Matt’s argument was that AT&T was throttling his cellphone’s unlimited data plan to a speed that made it unusuable.  As you know, AT&T would not be allowed an attorney, so they set an area representative.

The judge came up with the $850 dollar figure by estimating the cost for unlimited data at $85 (between the $100 Matt asked for and $65 the AT&T representative wanted) and multiplied it by the number of months remaining on the contract (arriving at $850).

Matt said he was throttled because he was in the top 5% of data users.  Matt uses his smartphone to project Netflix onto a screen so that he can watch at night.

Here is Matt on Fox News explaining his case:

After his win, Matt helped his brother file a case against AT&T, as his brother was also a victim of this throttling.  This time the case was filed in Los Angeles County Small Claims Court.

Again, here a casmallclaims.com, we love to see people using small claims court and applying it to new situations, like this.  Generally, when we hear cell phone contract disputes, we are used to hearing the user getting nickel and dimed or surprised by the monthly bill when it comes.

An AT&T representative said it is currently evaluating whether to file an appeal.

Mitt Romney approves Small Claims Court

Here at CASmallClaims.com, we don’t generally get involved in politics, unless they effect small claims court laws throughout the states.  We did think this little exchange was worth noting for our readers:

ROMNEY: That might be something to go down to their office — big office in Boston — go sit in their front lobby and say ‘I’m gonna sit here until you sit down with me and look at these documents.”

PYRA: Occupy Bank of America?

ROMNEY: “Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If you are in the right, and you’ve got the documents to prove it, I’d go after them. The other thing you can do is file a suit against them.

PYRA: I can’t afford a lawyer, so –

ROMNEY: Ah, just file it in small claims court. Just say that they’ve been harassing you. If you’ve been making your payments, and you’ve got your documents, then you can show that, I’d go to small claims court and say these guys have been harassing me.

Quite often in situations like this, and you are in the right, it may be necessary to take a company or person to small claims court.  Before you jump to that, we recommend writing a demand letter first.  One tip people commonly forget is including a date by which you expect  response or some other action from the party.  Make sure it’s reasonable time for action, otherwise a court will not think you are being fair to the other party.

For more information, check out the original news article.