An Alabama federal court has upheld an arbitration agreement containing a class action waiver, and granted a motion to compel arbitration of a dispute between a cable company and several customers.

In Milligan v. Comcast Corp, No. 7:06-cv-00809-UWC, 2007 WL 4885492 (N.D. Ala. Jan. 22, 2007), Comcast customers Milligan, Meadows, and Acker sued Comcast for charging a fee for which they received no benefit. Specifically, they asserted that Comcast charged a fee for "Cableguard," which covered in-home visits and repairs of video/data reception problems for equipment not owned by Comcast. They asserted that Comcast represented that those customers who did not pay for Cableguard would not receive the service when in fact those customers that did not pay the Cableguard fee also received the service.

Comcast moved to compel arbitration pursuant to an amendment to its subscriber agreement, which it had mailed out to its Tuscaloosa area customers in 2004. The amendment expressly stated that continued use of Comcast services constituted acceptance.

The Court granted Comcast's motion to compel arbitration of its dispute with Milligan, Meadows, and Acker finding that the arbitration agreements were valid and enforceable. The Court found the parties entered into an arbitration agreement when Comcast mailed one out and the customers failed to opt out. Further, the Court found no binding precedent that precluded enforcing an arbitration agreement with a class action waiver. On the contrary, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld class action waivers in Randolph v. Green Tree Fin. Corp., 244 F.3d 814, 819 (11th Cir. 2001) and Jenkins v. First American, 400 F. 3d 868, 878 (11th Cir. 2005). Consequently, the Court ordered the parties to arbitrate their dispute.