marco:

[many excellent points snipped]

How did this suit get past a judge?

It’s important to understand that the judge hasn’t ruled on the merits of any of the plaintiffs’ claims. That will happen later, when the motion for summary judgment is litigated. This step is called class certification.

All that’s happened so far is a judge has agreed with the plaintiff that:

• if their claims are true, they have a case and the firm representing them is capable of prosecuting it,
• the case would be best handled as a class action, and
• the named plaintiffs — the individuals who actually brought the suit — are sufficiently representative of the proposed class.

One of the next steps will be a motion for summary judgment, in which the plaintiffs actually will have to show that their case isn’t full of baloney, and that it should proceed to a full trial. This will probably take months, but if their claims are all as empty as Marco suggests, then the case will likely not survive that motion. But the class had to be certified first, because according to this ruling my amazing wife found in about 30 seconds (PDF link):

In the Ninth circuit, “district courts generally do not grant summary judgment on the merits of a class action until the class has been properly certified and notified.” Schwarzschild v. Tse, 69 F.3d 293, 295 (9th Cir. 1995)

It’s also worth mentioning that while, as Marco points out, many of the claims concern things that all U.S. carriers or manufacturers are guilty of, that’s not necessarily relevant. Has anyone in this jurisdiction sued a phone manufacturer over carrier locking before, or a carrier over hardware exclusivity? Given the opportunity, a court may very well find those acts to be in violation of antitrust law. But someone has to bring a case before we can know, and this just might be that case.