Apple Gets Siri False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit Dismissed

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A California federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit that accused Apple Inc. of misrepresenting the capabilities of the voice-activated iPhone “Siri” assistant so that consumers would be encouraged to pay a premium for the iPhone 4S.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken granted Apple’s motion to dismiss the Siri marketing class action lawsuit after finding the latest version of the complaint still consisted of general and vague allegations that were similar to those that led to a previous dismissal of the class action lawsuit in July 2013.

Plaintiff Frank Fazio initially filed the Siri class action lawsuit in March 2012, alleging that Siri was unable to provide him with directions to a certain place. He claimed that the voice-activated assistant either couldn’t understand his question or provided an incorrect response.

Fazio claimed that his experience with Siri differed greatly from Apple’s advertisements, which touted Siri as program that could easily understand voice instructions to help consumers with tasks such as finding restaurants, answering trivia questions, managing calendars and providing local traffic maps. The Siri class action lawsuit pointed to a number of television commercials that portrayed iPhone users asking Siri to answer questions or perform commands, to which the program responded quickly and easily.

Apple’s motion to dismiss the Siri lawsuit was granted with leave to amend in May 2012 after the judge determined Fazio failed to describe key elements of the alleged misrepresentation of Siri’s capabilities. In response, Fazio filed an amended complaint that clarified his theory of misrepresentation.

The revised Siri class action lawsuit claimed that consumers were “led to believe that Siri could function on a consistent basis as a personal assistant by understanding spoken questions and/or commands, knowing what those questions and/or commands meant, and by providing an adequate response to them.”

Fazio claimed that he relied on Apple’s advertisements which portrayed Siri as performing commands without issues. In reality, Fazio argues, Siri was unable to answer similar questions and frequently provided incorrect answers.

Apple again filed a motion to dismiss Fazio’s amended class action lawsuit because he again failed to provide specific evidence related to the alleged misrepresentation. Judge Wilken agreed with Apple, finding that the plaintiffs “still fail to isolate the particular statements at issue and explain each statement’s false and misleading nature.” Although the amended complaint listed specific commercial advertisements the individual plaintiffs viewed, Wilken found that they failed to identify precisely which statements from the advertisements were false and misleading.

“Apple would be hard-pressed to defend against an allegation that the overall impact of these commercials and advertisements misled Plaintiffs,” Judge Wilkens wrote, finding that the fraud claims in the class action lawsuit should be dismissed for lack of specificity.

Judge Wilkens also agreed with Apple’s assertion that it never represented Siri as an infallible program. “Apple made no promise that Siri would operate without fail,” she wrote. “A reasonable consumer would understand that commercials depicting the products they are intended to promote would be unlikely to depict failed attempts.

The plaintiffs are represented by Mark J. Dearman, Shawn A. Williams, Paul J. Geller and Kathleen L. Barber of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP; Ben Barnow and Erich P. Schork of Barnow & Associates PC; and James S. Notis and Jennifer Sarnelli of Gardy & Notis LLP.

The Siri False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is In re: iPhone 4S Consumer Litigation, Case No. 5:12-cv-01127, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On May 3, 2016, Apple urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals not to reconsider a determination that consumer complaints about Siri’s speech recognition capabilities were too vague to justify a class action lawsuit.

UPDATE 2: On May 26, 2016, reaffirming their previous dismissal order, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel voted to deny a Class request for rehearing of a putative class complaint against Apple that accuses the company of misrepresenting the speech capabilities of its iPhone 4S product.