Another Cell Phone Plaintiff Bites Tne Dust

Weren't you irritated when you bought a fancy new cell phone free, or at a discount, because you signed up for a two-year plan, and then discovered that you were paying sales tax figured on the undiscounted sales price that you didn't pay? Me too. But it's all perfectly legal, according to a regulation put out by the Board of Equalization. And if you file a lawsuit claiming that the carrier didn't give you proper notice, you hit the bar of Article XIII, Section 32, which prohibits the issuance of injunctions against tax collection. That's what happened to the plaintiff in Yabsley v. Cingular Wireless (here). That's true even for a cause of action against the cell phone company based on the company's failure to disclose how much the tax is.