All About Charter Spectrum Lawsuits

It can be tough to take on bad practices that you see in a big corporation, and sometimes even tougher to do so while you are an employee of that company.

The San Antonio Express-News has this story:
(Source)

A former Spectrum sales executive in San Antonio says in a federal lawsuit that she was fired in retaliation for reporting alleged securities fraud to her bosses.

Hether McCullar alleges her firing was a violation of whistleblower protections provided under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

McCullar is suing Spectrum parent Charter Communications Inc. to get her job back and for unspecified lost wages and punitive damages. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Antonio.

[…]

According to her lawsuit, McCullar notified her supervisors that other Spectrum employees were misclassifying accounts as “new revenue that should have been reported as renewals with a downgrade in revenue.”

Charter Spectrum is the parent company of many small news stations, and some anchors of a New York City station felt discriminated against, per CBS News: (Source)

Five newscasters at NY1, a New York City news station, are suing parent company Charter Communications over age and gender discrimination. In a lawsuit obtained by the Associated Press, the anchors allege NY1 “blatantly marginalized them and cast them aside in favor of younger women and men.”

Emmy-winning anchor Roma Torre and her co-plaintiffs say Charter Communications, which acquired NY1 in 2016, altered their career trajectories. They say they would like return to the positions they occupied before Charter took control of NY1, and are seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit.

[…]

In a news release, the five anchors said women on television “should accurately reflect women in society and be celebrated at every age, not treated like decoration that can be disposed and replaced with a newer version.”

Charter Spectrum has been involved with record labels and production companies for a long time, and their apparent lack of responsiveness to copyright problems is finally being addressed, according to Billboard:
(Source)

More than 50 leading record labels and publishers have filed a lawsuit against Charter Communications, Inc. for contributing and profiting off its internet subscribers’ copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Colorado, accuses internet service provider Charter — which conducts business under the name Spectrum — of deliberately refusing to “take reasonable measures to curb customers from using its Internet services to infringe on others’ copyrights, including Plaintiffs’ copyrights — even after Charter became aware of particular customers engaging in specific, repeated acts of infringement.”

The music companies continue to state they sent hundreds of thousands of statutory infringement notices to Charter that went mostly ignored.

“Rather than working with Plaintiffs to curb this massive infringement, Charter did nothing, choosing to prioritize its own profits over its legal obligations,” reads the suit.

Windstream Holdings is suing Spectrum over alleged “scare tactics” that were being used to convert Windstream’s customer base, CRN reports:
(Source)

Windstream Holdings is accusing telecommunications rival Charter Communications of launching an all-out “scare-tactic campaign” and using “bait and switch” efforts to attract Windstream’s customers to Charter’s Spectrum brand, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday.

Windstream filed its lawsuit against Charter, the third-largest cable provider in the country, with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.

“Charter through its brand Spectrum, commenced a scare-tactic campaign to mislead, deceive, and confuse consumers regarding the reason, status, and consequences of Windstream’s Chapter 11 cases,” the complaint states. “Charter disseminated false advertisements, directly targeting Windstream’s strongest customer bases in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, Nebraska, and North Carolina. With a clear intent to deceive, Charter’s advertisements were sent to Windstream’s customers in a manner designed to make customers believe that the communication was from Windstream.”

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has raised the issue of Spectrum not allowing disabled customer service representatives in Hawaii to take disability leave:
(Source)

HONOLULU, Hawaii – Oceanic Time Warner Cable LLC, doing business as Spectrum, violated federal law when it denied leave as an accommodation to a class of customer service representatives at its headquarters in Mililani, Hawaii, the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.

The EEOC contends that Spectrum maintained inflexible leave and attendance policies that did not allow additional leave as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities. Upon the exhaustion of FMLA leave, Spectrum failed to engage in the interactive process to determine if reasonable accommodations could be provided, and simply notified employees that if they could not return to full duty, they would be discharged. The EEOC further charged that Spectrum denied reasonable accommodations to probationary employees because its policy only allowed for two unpaid absences during the six-month probationary period. For employees who have exhausted their earned sick hours and two unpaid absences, the company did not engage in the interactive process to determine if reasonable accommodations could be provided, and instead terminated their employment.

Charter Spectrum agreed to a settlement with the LA District Attorney for failing to deliver advertised internet speeds to its California customers.

From Syracuse.com:

Spectrum has agreed to pay $18.8 million to settle allegations its predecessor, Time Warner Cable, used misleading advertising to lure California consumers into paying for high-speed internet services the company could not deliver.

[…]

Under the settlement with the Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office, the company will pay $16.9 million in restitution directly to eligible customers based on the type of service they purchased from Time Warner Cable. It also agreed to pay $1.9 million to the three prosecuting agencies in the case to cover costs associated with the investigation and prosecution.

The agreement covers more than 170,000 California consumers who did not get the internet speeds they paid for.