October 31, 2024
Prison phone company Global*Tel Link Corp will pay $17 million to escape claims that it colluded with two other companies to inflate the cost of calls made from inside U.S. prisons after a Maryland federal judge gave the deal her preliminary seal of approval Wednesday afternoon.
U.S. Circuit Judge Lydia K. Griggsby conducted the entire fairness hearing top to bottom in under 30 minutes, saying at the end that she was satisfied that the settlement was fair and that the proposed class — which could number in the tens of thousands — was good for preliminary certification.
In closing, she reminded the parties that there was still “quite a bit of work to be done in this case” to identify who all the class members are and figure out how to notify them, since the parties are not yet sure exactly how many people will fit the bill.
The class will comprise anyone who received a call from a loved one from a facility with phone service run by GTL during a certain period and paid for that call, since the provisionally certified class argues they paid an inflated rate.
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The family members of prisoners and the proposed class are represented by Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Justice Catalyst Law Inc., the Human Rights Defense Center and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.