To the editor:
Once again the Illinois Supreme Court has acted foolishly, this time to supplant federal authority.
On Oct. 5, the Court ruled that the Lakin Law Firm could proceed with a lawsuit against the cellular phone company Cingular, as a class action. Lakin should not have been allowed to proceed in any capacity.
Cingular is accused of improperly charging a $150 cancellation fee when a consumer changes carriers.
Illinois courts do not have jurisdiction.
The FCC has the sole authority to represent any class action against any electronic communication industry. Lakin and Illinois courts should not be allowed to pre-empt the FCC as the representative of cell phone consumers.
This is not an isolated case of lawyer or lawfirms pre-empting the right of consumers to be represented by government authority. This has become a rampant practice throughout this nation.
The time has come for a class action lawsuit in federal court (this law is now available) against lawyers and lawfirms for their transgression of using manufactured class action lawsuits to defraud consumers by pre-empting their right.
The awards in this kind of lawsuit will make tobacco litigation awards look like penny poker, with every citizen benefitting by the demise of manufactured class action lawsuits that are a malignant cancer in the bowels of this nation.
Charles D. Sullivan
Waterloo
Class action against lawyers
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