Badie

Plaintiffs, four individuals and two consumer-oriented organizations, Consumer Action and California Trial Lawyers Association, challenge the validity of an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) clause which Bank of America (the Bank) sought to add to existing account agreements between itself and its deposit account, and credit card account customers by sending those customers an insert with their monthly account statements (hereafter, bill staffer), notifying them of the new term. None of the individual plaintiffs had a deposit account with the Bank, but all had the Bank’s credit cards.

Plaintiffs filed their complaint shortly after the Bank began sending the bill staffers to its customers. All six plaintiffs, acting as private attorneys general, sought to enjoin implementation of the ADR provision on the ground that its addition to the account agreements violated the Unfair Competition Act, Business and Professions Code section 17200 et seq. The four individual plaintiffs alleged two additional causes of action on their own behalf. In one, they sought to enjoin implementation of the ADR provision on the ground that its addition to the account agreements violated the…