Charter Communications cannot use the federal net neutrality repeal to avoid a lawsuit over slow Internet speeds in New York, the state's Supreme Court ruled today.

The lawsuit was filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary in February 2017. Schneiderman alleges that the Internet provider "conduct[ed] a deliberate scheme to defraud and mislead New Yorkers by promising Internet service that they knew they could not deliver."

Charter thought that the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality repeal would help it fight the lawsuit. In November, Charter argued in a court filing that its motion to dismiss the case was bolstered by the repeal because the FCC also preempted state-level regulation.

But the New York Supreme Court rejected that and other arguments made by Charter in today's ruling, which denies Charter's motion to dismiss Schneiderman's complaint. (The NY Supreme Court is a trial-level court; New York's highest state court is the Court of Appeals.)

"Today's decision by the New York Supreme Court marks a major victory for New York consumers—rejecting every single argument made by Charter-Spectrum in its attempts to block our lawsuit," Schneiderman said in a statement.

The court decision "ensures that our office can continue to hold Charter-Spectrum to account for its failure to deliver the reliable Internet speeds it promised consumers," Schneiderman also said.

The AG looks forward to "vindicating" New York consumers when the case proceeds to trial, he said.

"The law requires Internet service providers to tell consumers the truth," he said. "Our suit seeks much-needed relief for the millions of New Yorkers we allege have been cheated by Charter-Spectrum for far too long."

Charter’s arguments “without merit”

When the FCC eliminated its net neutrality rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization, the commission kept a version of rules requiring ISPs to be transparent about their network management practices. Charter claimed that the continued existence of a transparency rule and the FCC's preemption of state net neutrality regulation is enough to preempt "the Attorney General's allegations that Time Warner Cable made deceptive claims about its broadband speeds."

But the state Supreme Court disagreed with Charter that the net neutrality repeal was relevant to the ISP's motion to dismiss the case. The FCC's net neutrality repeal order "includes no language purporting to create, extend or modify the preemptive reach of the Transparency Rule," the court noted.

The New York Supreme Court also pointed to several passages from the FCC's repeal order that contradict Charter's claims. For example, the FCC said that "[a]lthough we preempt state and local laws that interfere with the federal deregulatory policy restored in this order, we do not disturb or displace the states' traditional role in generally policing such matters as fraud, taxation, and general commercial dealings, so long as the administration of such general state laws does not interfere with federal regulatory objectives."

The FCC order also said that states will "continue to play their vital role in protecting consumers from fraud, enforcing fair business practices, for example, in advertising and billing, and generally responding to consumer inquiries and complaints."

The state Supreme Court also rejected Charter's claim that other federal laws preempt the lawsuit.

"Spectrum-TWC fails to identify any provision of the FCA [Federal Communications Act] that preempts state anti-fraud or consumer-protection claims, or reflects any intention by Congress to make federal law the exclusive source of law protecting consumers from broadband providers' deceptive conduct," today's court decision said.

Other arguments made by Charter were "without merit," the court said.

When contacted by Ars today, a Charter spokesperson said the company will continue to "vigorously" defend itself against Schneiderman's lawsuit.

“Spectrum not only delivers its advertised Internet speeds, we have in fact raised the minimum broadband speeds that all our New York customers receive, at the same price," the company said. "Importantly, the court made no ruling on the allegations about historic Time Warner Cable practices, and we will continue to contest these claims vigorously as the case progresses. We at Spectrum look forward to many years of providing New Yorkers best-in-class speeds at highly competitive prices.”

Charter has previously claimed that the alleged conduct occurred entirely before it purchased TWC in May 2016. But Schneiderman's lawsuit alleged that the company "continues to underserve [its] subscribers by failing to make the capital investments necessary to live up to [its] promised speeds."

Charter says that "virtually" all of its customers nationwide will have the option of buying gigabit-speed cable Internet service by the end of 2018.

Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 13 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications. Advance Publications owns Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica.