JPay Loses Bid to Revoke Class Certification in Washington Prisoners’ Challenge to Crummy Products and Service
Over five years ago, in May 2020, Washington prisoners Michael Linear and Lonnie Burton filed a complaint in state court against prison telecom JPay LLC, which held the exclusive contract with the state Department of Corrections (DOC) to provide prisoners their “sole means of access to any electronic content, email, games, music, or internet access.”
JPay, the prisoners said, had “abused its monopoly by devising a scheme that baits inmates into purchasing excessively priced products and services, withholds the terms and conditions on those products and services from inmate review, and subjects inmates to a protracted sham trouble-shooting process that neither results in a repair or refund.”
As the prisoners noted, the firm’s kiosks provided access to the terms of service only after they clicked a button accepting them—at which point the kiosk “timed out” within two minutes, long before they had a chance to locate and read the relevant terms. Worse, one of those terms they were forced to accept before they could review it was an agreement to submit to arbitration to resolve any disputes—including challenging excessive fees, like a $8.95 for a $40.00 deposit into a prisoner’s account.
Sure enough, JPay responded with a motion to compel arbitration, which the Superior Court of Washington for Mason County granted, and the state Court of Appeals, Division II, affirmed. Linear and Burton then appealed to the American Arbitration Association (AAA), challenging the class-action waiver in JPay’s binding arbitration provision. JPay—a subsidiary of Dallas-based Securus Technologies—responded by filing suit in federal court for the Northern District of Texas to foreclose the prisoners’ objections, also asking the court to determine that the class-action waiver in the binding arbitration clause was enforceable.
However, the prisoners outsmarted JPay; each claimed damages of $50,000, well below the $75,000 threshold to assume diversity jurisdiction of a case in another state, as outlined in the rules for federal courts—which also prevented JPay from combining claims of two or more defendants to satisfy that requirement. The Northern District of Texas therefore determined it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and dismissed JPay’s complaint on August 15, 2023. See: JPay LLC v. Burton, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142178 (N.D. Tex.).
The AAA then issued its ruling on December 8, 2023, finding the class-action waiver in the terms of service “unconscionable and unenforceable.” The prisoners’ request for attorney’s fees was denied, though, and they were left owing a share of $2,400 in AAA’s administrative fees. But the Arbitrator’s $10,000 fee was charged to JPay. See: Linear v. JPay LLC, Amer. Arb. Assoc. Case No. 01-22-0000—3053.
Remanded back to Washington, the case was reopened and the prisoner Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. JPay filed another motion to compel arbitration, but this time it was denied. In its order issued on May 20, 2024, the court found persuasive the prisoner’s argument that the AAA Arbitrator’s ruling called into question their assent to other provisions of the terms of service agreement. Moreover, JPay had never filed an answer to the amended complaint.
Things continued to go south for JPay on July 8, 2024, when Plaintiff’s request for class certification was granted. “These claims all focus on a common practice of JPay retailing products like music, movies, video games, and video visits that were not made available to inmates and, despite inmates complaining to JPay about the product or service not functioning or not being delivered to them, JPay refused to resolve the issue and never reimbursed the inmate,” the court recalled.
Finding that meant there was sufficient commonality of potential claims, the court said they were sufficiently numerous, too, potentially coming from thousands of state prisoners. Moreover, there was adequate class counsel, the court determined, agreeing then that class certification was proper. Linear was appointed class representative, and his attorneys from Breskin Johnson Townsend in Seattle were appointed class counsel.
The three classes certified included “[a]ll consumers incarcerated at a public facility in the state of Washington” between May 22, 2016 through December 16, 2020, who:
1.“purchased digital media products, including music, movies, or video games, from Defendant JPay … complained to JPay through its trouble ticket process about a purchased product that did not work, and JPay did not resolve the issue or reimburse the consumer within one month of the complaint.”
2.“purchased digital media products, including music, movies, or video games from Defendant JPay … complained to JPay through its trouble ticket process about a purchased product that did not work, and JPay did not resolve the issue or reimburse the consumer within 72 hours of the complaint.”
3.“purchased video visits from Defendant JPay, or whose family members purchased video visits from Defendant JPay … that did not work and JPay did not reimburse the consumer or paying family member within one month of the scheduled visit.”
JPay filed a motion to vacate the order. But it was denied on December 9, 2024, leaving the case to proceed to trial. PLN will update developments as they become available. See: Burton v. Securus Techs., Wash. Super. (Mason Cty.), Case No. 20-2-00201-23.
Related legal case
Burton v. Securus Techs.
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Wash. Super. (Mason Cty.), Case No. 20-2-00201-23 |
| Level | State Trial Court |
| Conclusion | Certification |