DirecTV Arbitration Won't Include Best Buy

(CN) – Best Buy customers unhappy with the rental agreements for DirecTV equipment must arbitrate with the television provider, not the retailer, the 9th Circuit ruled Tuesday.     In a putative class action, lead plaintiffs John Murphy, Greg Masters and Roberta Weiss had claimed that both Best Buy and DirecTV failed to make it clear that Best Buy leases, rather than sells, DirecTV equipment. They also alleged that those leases are unfair and come with exorbitant fees.     U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen in Los Angeles compelled the plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims against DirecTV, and that Best Buy must participate in the arbitration.     A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit agreed as to DirecTV but let the retailer off the hook in a unanimous ruling, rejecting the “imaginative” arguments of both parties.     “Plaintiffs agreed to arbitrate their claims against DirecTV,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the Pasadena-based panel Tuesday. “They did not agree to arbitrate their claims against Best Buy. Notwithstanding the parties’ many imaginative legal arguments, in this case they remain bound by the agreements they made and not by any they did not make. We affirm the district court’s order compelling plaintiffs to arbitrate with DirecTV, and reverse its order compelling them to arbitrate with Best Buy.”