For those who turn to bail bonds in California, the cost of getting oneself or a loved one out of prison while awaiting a court date can be steep, but a proposed class action now poised to move forward contends there's more to those rates than honest market forces.

According to that suit in California, nonrefundable premiums bondsmen charge have been collectively fixed. Bail bond purchasers contend that the sureties that underwrite those bonds have teamed up with bail agents to set a bottom floor for premiums by essentially prohibiting providers from offering rebates.

And last week, a federal judge found that entities tied to the bail bond industries can't rely on a state law to shield them from the accusations, finding little immunity for the alleged conduct and concluded that the proposed class has demonstrated enough evidence to suggest a prior agreement.

And while some defendants like the surety companies were able to show there wasn't enough evidence to keep them in the suit, the bond purchasers will have a chance to rope them back in.

In his April 13 decision, U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar found that the 28 defendants had immunity from federal antitrust allegations, but he left antitrust claims under state law intact. According to Judge Tigar, the legal protections that typically cover a "state action" — a term that can involve rates filed with government agencies, state agency authority and petitioning the government — cannot block the allegations.

Additionally, federal claims of a conspiracy not to offer rebates were only pared back, with leave to amend, primarily because the accusations were deemed too vague. An attorney for the proposed class said however that they'll be shoring up those claims.

"We have 30 days… and I'm optimistic we'll be able to," Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP partner Dean M. Harvey told Law360 in an interview.

None of the defendants contacted by Law360 was willing to comment, primarily because the case is ongoing.

Named plaintiffs Shonetta Crain and Kira Serna say they and "hundreds of thousands" of others bought bonds for themselves or a loved one at artificially high rates because sureties, bail agencies and trade groups conspired to submit uniform premium rates to the state for approval of 10%.

While bail is refundable provided defendants show up to court, they don't get those premiums back, which can run in the thousands of dollars.

Bail agents are permitted to offer rebates on premiums under a 2004 California Superior Court ruling that made clear that a law passed by voter referendum six years earlier permitting insurance rebates could be applied to bail.

But according to the second prong of the plaintiffs' lawsuit, first filed in state court last year only to be yanked in front of a federal judge, California bail groups agreed to advertise and offer only the maximum rate while concealing the ability to offer rebates.

"This case shows how important antitrust law is," Ben Elga, executive director of Justice Catalyst Law, one of the legal advocacy groups pursuing the case with Lieff Cabraser, said in a statement announcing the judge's decision. "When companies conspire to inflate prices, people can be literally forced to choose between paying unfair prices and their freedom."

That conspiracy allegedly involved the advertisement of the 10% rate without mention that rebates were available. And the bail industry has allegedly treated that premium as the only legally applied rate.

The only part of the case that Judge Tigar tossed with prejudice, and thus with no ability to amend, were federal Sherman Act claims based on allegedly uniform premium rates submitted to the California Department of Insurance.

Those allegations, he said, are blocked by the McCarran-Ferguson Act, which immunizes state-regulated business of insurance from antitrust law. But the law's protections do not extend to the alleged agreement not to rebate, according to the 34-page ruling.

"Defendants claim that this alleged practice 'relates to risk evaluation,' but they do not even attempt to explain how," Judge Tigar said.

While the federal law allegations of uniform premium rate submissions didn't survive, Judge Tigar found no such protection for claims made under California law which mirror their federal counterparts.

Federal law allegations of collectively refused premiums also stand in part because Judge Tigar rejected assertions that the CDI's rate-setting process actually required uniform pricing. That argument "conflates defendants' obligation to offer fixed premiums with their ability to offer rebates," the judge said.

The defendants also cannot claim immunity by arguing the CDI has sole authority over premium rates, Judge Tigar said, because the lawsuit isn't over the reasonableness of the rates charged. Nor can the defendants claim protection because they were petitioning a government agency, because those safeguards expressly disavow the kind of direct price-fixing alleged here, according to the ruling.

Across the defendants, Judge Tigar also said that he's seen enough in the allegations to suggest a broad conspiracy based on nearly uniform filings for and advertisements of 10% premiums. The defendants do contemplate a lower rate of 8% in certain mitigating circumstances, with the criteria for the savings allegedly uniform across providers.

Other parts of the suit nixed were tossed without prejudice, meaning that the plaintiffs can try to resurrect them.

For now, Judge Tigar concluded that the consumers' consolidated amended class action complaint, or CAC, hasn't identified the role of each of the surety defendants in the conspiracy by which they allegedly agreed on and enforced bail bonds premiums.

Judge Tigar similarly tossed allegations against the two bail agencies named in the complaint. Two Jinn Inc., which also operates as Aladdin Bail Bonds, is allegedly at the heart of the conspiracy, but Judge Tigar found that its participation in a trade group and its listing only of an 8% and 10% premium that it claimed it was "authorized" to charge wasn't enough.

The claims against the second agency, All-Pro Bail Bonds Inc., are " even thinner," Judge Tigar said, with the CAC not actually alleging that it failed to offer Crain a rebate.

As for trade group defendants American Bail Coalition Inc., or ABC; California Bail Agents Association, or CBAA; and Golden State Bail Agents Association, or GSBAA; Judge Tigar found only the allegations against CBAA to be currently sufficient.

The complaint, according to the ruling, alleges that CBAA tracks premiums and enables enforcement against those offering rebates and allegedly offers a misleading rebates explanation on its website, telling consumers that bail agents must all charge the same rates filed with the CDI.

CBAA also allegedly promotes a book called "Bail Bonds 101" that says to tell consumers that any competitor offering a lower percentage premium will make up for it somewhere else.

"The allegations against ABC and GSBAA, by contrast, are inadequate. The only specific allegation concerning ABC relates to a statement made by a former — not current — executive director," Judge Tigar said. "And there are no specific allegations concerning GSBAA whatsoever."

The judge refused however to toss proposed class claims for alleged premium overcharges predating 2015, permitting claims starting with the 2004 court ruling because he found adequate allegations of fraudulent concealment of the scheme and continuing violations with the ongoing sale of bonds, to get around the four-year statute of limitations.

Also importantly, Judge Tigar refused to toss claims against Jerry Watson, the vice president of AIA, the largest bail surety administrator in the country, and against American Surety Co. President and CEO William B. Carmichael.

The complaint, Judge Tigar said, quotes the men as deriding price-cutting and blasting rebating, with Carmichael quoted as warning that "rampant premium discounting will result in the end of the bail bond business as we know it, to be replaced by a new model that properly reflects the proper balance of risk and reward."

Individuals can be held responsible for antitrust violations if they participated directly or signed off on conduct they knew to be illegal, according to the decision.

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--Additional reporting by RJ Vogt. Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.