DISH Network Class Action Lawsuit and Settlement

In March 2011, Gibbs Law Group LLP and co-counsel Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and The Wentz Law Firm filed a national class action lawsuit alleging that DISH unlawfully raised its prices for satellite television services in February 2011. The suit alleges that DISH breached its contracts and violated the Colorado Consumer Protection Act when it raised prices on customers who were bound by a two-year contract with discounted pricing for the first 12-months. The Court approved a settlement on March 23, 2012.

Am I eligible for a benefit under the settlement?

You may be eligible to receive a benefit under the settlement if you:

reside in the United States,
activated DISH programming services between February 1, 2009 and January 31, 2011 with a 24-month commitment term and an initial 12-month, promotional discounted price, and
your programming package was subject to DISH’s February 2011 price increase.

If you are eligible for a benefit, you should have received a notice from DISH. The notice may have come with your printed bill, either as an insert or as one page of the bill, or as an e-mail from DISH.

Please note that customers are not eligible for benefits if they:

received programming, equipment, or monetary accommodations after the February 2011 price increase in response to complaint(s) about the price increase, or
are customers who were in the second year of their 24-month commitment term for one of the following packages: DISH’s America’s Everything Pak, Latino Welcome Pack, Latino Clásico, Latino Plus, Latino Dos, or Latino Max at the time of the February 2011 price increase.

The deadline to submit claim forms to receive the full benefits available under the settlement has now passed. If you have not submitted a claim form, you will receive only the automatic benefit of locked in pricing until January 31, 2013 on most packages; this benefit is not available on the America’s Everything Pak or the DISH Latino packages. The court will consider whether to grant final approval of the settlement on March 21, 2012, and benefits will be distributed following entry of a court order approving the settlement.

What benefits are available to me?

Benefits available to class members include:

account credits
free Pay-Per-View vouchers,
free Blockbuster By Mail service
DISH’s promise not to raise prices again until January 31, 2013 for certain packages

To determine the exact benefits available to you, you need to determine your class sub-group, which is stated in the notice you received from DISH as “Current DISH Customer Class Sub-Group #,” “Former DISH Customer Class Sub-Group #,” or “Second Year DISH Customer Class Sub-Group.”

If you received notice with your printed bill, the sub-group is included about halfway down the notice in a sentence that begins “DISH has determined that . . . .” If you received an e-mail notice, the sub-group is stated in the first sentence of section #8 (“What can I get from the settlement?”) of that notice. If you cannot locate your sub-group or think the sub-group stated in your notice is wrong, you can call DISH at 877-289-4307 for assistance.

Once you have determined your sub-group, you can access a full class notice that describes the benefits available to you. The full class notices are available below under Important Documents.

How do I get my benefit?

If you are in the Second Year DISH Customer Sub-Group, you do not need to do anything to receive your benefit; there is no claim form to complete and you will automatically receive the benefit available to you unless you exclude yourself from the class.

If you are in any other sub-group (such a Current DISH Customer Class Sub-Group 1, 2, or 3 or Former DISH Customer Class Sub-Group 1, 2, or 3), you must fill out and submit a claim form to receive the full benefits available to you. Claim forms are available above at the top right of this page and also below under Settlement Documents (combined with a full class notice). Select and print the claim form for your class sub-group, check the benefit option you want to receive, fill-in all the requested information, and return the completed form to the address (or e-mail) stated on the claim form.