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A state appellate court in California brought back a false advertising class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. alleging that the company misled its customers when it said the iPhone 3G was supposed to be twice as fast as a previous iPhone, saying that AT&T Mobility doesn’t need to be a defendant in the lawsuit.
The iPhone class action lawsuit was dismissed by a lower court, but the Sixth Appellate District court in California reversed that decision Friday.
Plaintiff Ingrid Van Zant filed the iPhone class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T in July 2010 for false advertising, breach of warranty as well as other allegations related to the marketing of the iPhone 3G.
“Van Zant alleged that Apple falsely advertised the iPhone 3G to be ‘twice as fast’ as its predecessor, the iPhone 2G,” wrote Justice Miguel Marquez in the decision, representing the panel.
“She claimed that hardware and software flaws inherent in the iPhone 3G prevented it from performing as advertised,” he added.
According to Van Zant, when she used her iPhone 3G and iPhone 2G side by side, her old phone “performed just as fast, or at times faster, then her new iPhone 3G device.”
The iPhone class action lawsuit was dismissed by Judge James Kleinberg in the Santa Clara Superior Court in 2013 because he said that the speed of the iPhone was due to AT&T’s network, not the iPhone itself.
There was a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that made similar allegations as Van Zant’s iPhone lawsuit.
The plaintiffs in the iPhone MDL alleged that both Apple and AT&T were both responsible for the false advertising charges because they both “uniformly advertised the iPhone 3G as ‘Twice as Fast'” when compared the network that the iPhone 2G operated on.
The trial court dismissed the iPhone class action lawsuit based on this iPhone MDL, which believed that AT&T was primarily at fault for the speed issues.
“Van Zant’s claim is analogous to a claim that her television gets poor reception solely because its cable input port is defective; this claim would require her to sue her cable provider as a necessary party,” Judge Marguez wrote.
“At its core, Van Zant’s complaint is no different from any other claim for defectively manufactured technology,” he added.
The appellate court judge explained that Van Zant “claims that the problem is inherent in the software and hardware of the iPhone 3G itself. Accepting this claim as true — as we must — the issue of the iPhone 3G’s performance is not necessarily intertwined with the functioning of AT&T’s network.”
The panel said that even if AT&T was partially responsible, those charges can be made in a separate lawsuit.
Justices Miguel Marquez, Conrad L. Rushing and Eugene M. Premo sat on the panel that reached Friday’s decision.
Van Zant is represented by Jonathan Weissglass and P. Casey Pitts of Altshuler Berzon LLP; and Michael G. Stewart, J. Gerard Stranch IV and James G. Stranch III of Branstetter Stranch & Jennings PLLC.
Apple is represented by Miriam A. Vogel, Penelope A. Preovolos and Suzanna P. Brickman of Morrison & Foerster LLP.
The iPhone 3G Class Action Lawsuit is Van Zant v. Apple Inc., case number H039354, in the Court of Appeal of the State of California, Sixth Appellate District.
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