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Wireless providers including T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon have faced a string of lawsuits in recent years from women who allege retail employees stole intimate images or videos from their phones while helping them with in-store data transfers.
The cases are routinely dismissed when the companies argue they weren’t aware of the staffer’s actions and aren’t 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 the store workers — could face liability in future litigation, which could lead them to address the hiring, training and data safety practices that victims argue led to the violations, the experts said.
The latest lawsuit against AT&T was filed Monday in California state 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 he helped her with transferring her data.
That case, filed by attorneys from the C.A. Goldberg law firm, now has a better chance of surviving and making it to trial after an April court ruling against T-Mobile involving a similar incident in Washington that was brought by the same law firm. Judge Stanley Bastian, the judge overseeing the T-Mobile case, ruled it could move forward after the company sought to have the lawsuit dismissed.
T-Mobile, like other phone carriers, had argued it wasn’t aware of the employee’s actions and said he was acting outside the scope of his duties. But the judge decided the company could potentially be liable and ruled the case should proceed.
The ruling, described by the law firm as a “landmark” decision, is the first of its kind against a wireless carrier accused of negligence for hiring employees alleged to have stolen sensitive customer data, the firm said. It could affect the fate of future cases, including the lawsuit filed against AT&T on Monday, legal experts said.
“That decision sets important precedent and we intend to continue to try to hold phone companies accountable for situations like this where their employees violate customer privacy during phone trade-ins or other transactions at the stores,” said Laura Hecht-Felella from C.A. Goldberg, one of the lead attorneys behind both the T-Mobile and the new AT&T case. “There’s a lot of different ways in which they can try to prevent this from happening and it’s clear whatever they’re currently doing is not adequate.”
Carrie Goldberg, the firm’s founder, added that the “hope really is not to attract more cases” but to encourage the companies to have better safeguards in place.
“That’s what litigation does. It says you can be held responsible for your negligence,” said Goldberg. “And presumably that will induce the phone companies to innovate on their safety and privacy protections for consumers at their stores.”
AT&T did not immediately respond to a…