The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 vote in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion is a devastating blow to consumer rights. By upholding the arbitration clause in AT&T’s customer agreement requiring the signer to waive the right to take part in a class action, the court provided other corporations with a model of how they can avoid class actions. It gave companies even more power when it also ruled out class-based arbitrations.

These are major setbacks for individuals who may not have the resources to challenge big companies in court or through arbitration.

When Vincent and Liza Concepcion signed a two-year contract for AT&T cellphone service, they received what they were told were two free phones. AT&T then charged them $30.22 in sales tax for the phones. They sued the company for fraud in federal court and their case and another were consolidated as a class action.

AT&T argued that the contract required the Concepcions to submit their claim to individual arbitration. A federal trial court, upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, struck down the AT&T arbitration clause as unconscionable under California law and allowed the plaintiffs to move forward against the company in a class action in federal court.