Roberta Sweetow, 67, keeps the hulking black rotary phone, the one she has had since 1964, on her nightstand in case her husband Herb, 74, receives an early-morning call to substitute teach in a Skokie, Ill., high school. Sweetow purchased the phone for $9 last year, after finally noticing a charge buried in her bill every three months: $18 to lease a telephone. "I realized I've paid over $1,000 for a phone I hardly use," she says. "Who in the world rents a telephone?"
Lots, say lawyers representing approximately 44 million customers in a $10 billion class action against AT&T;, which...