SAN FRANCISCO — When the iPhone debuted, Apple and AT&T were in it together. But when one gets dragged into the courtroom, does the other have to follow?
On Friday, lawyers for Apple Inc. will make their case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that plaintiffs suing Apple for locking them into AT&T Mobility service on their early-model iPhones must sue the carrier as well. Plaintiffs lawyers, who have been pressing their case since 2007, are fighting back vehemently for an obvious reason—AT&T Inc. has an iron-clad arbitration agreement, and their one hope of escaping its clutches is keeping AT&T out of the lawsuit.
