Samsung Galaxy Owner Wants Phone Speed Class Action Certified

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A Samsung Galaxy owner is seeking Class certification in his lawsuit alleging that the company rigged its smartphones to run faster in pre-sale speed tests.

Last week, plaintiff Daniel Norcia asked a California federal court to certify a Class of California Samsung Galaxy S4 buyers.

Norcia claims that Samsung rigged Galaxy 4S phones to perform better in pre-sale speed tests than they do in normal use, and argues that Samsung intentionally misled customers about the nature and quality of the product.

This Class certification move comes after the Samsung case has been significantly trimmed. The Samsung Galaxy class action lawsuit was filed five years ago, and the only claim that remains is Norcia’s assertion that Samsung participated in unfair competition and violated California law by doing so.

Norcia has asked the court to certify a Class of California customers who purchased a Galaxy S4s between April and July 2013 — the four months after the device went on the market.

The plaintiff claims that a California Class easily meets the numerosity requirement for a class action lawsuit. According to Norcia, California residents make up a large portion of the 10 million sales of the Galaxy S4 reported for 2013.

To support his request for Class certification, Norcia notes that the Galaxy S4 buyers in his proposed Class can be contacted by the email addresses that their wireless carriers have associated with their accounts.

Norcia says that “the vast majority of Galaxy S4 smart phones sold during the class period were sold by third-party retailers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint) which possess records showing purchasers of the Galaxy S4 smart phone during the class period, and have either procured identifying information for each purchaser or agreed to provide class list informant if and when a class is certified in the above-referenced section.”

Norcia first filed the Samsung Galaxy speed class action lawsuit in 2014. He claimed that the tech company tricked customers into believing they were purchasing phones that ran faster than they did in reality, by cheating on pre-sales speed tests known as “benchmarking” applications.

Then in 2015, Samsung made a successful bid to dismiss some of the claims, and made a successful judgment bid in October. Though the claims have been significantly reduced due to Samsung’s efforts, the company was not able to be completely rid of the Galaxy speed class action lawsuit.

The California federal court not only refused to entirely dismiss the Galaxy class action lawsuit, but refused Samsung’s efforts to move the claims into arbitration and settle them out of court. The Ninth Circuit then affirmed this decision in 2015.

Norcia is represented by Eduardo G. Roy, Daniel C. Quintero and John R. Hurley of Prometheus Partners LLP and by Alec Cierny of The Cierny Firm.

The Samsung Galaxy Speed Fraud Class Action Lawsuit is Daniel Norcia v. Samsung Telecommunications America LLC, et al., Case No. 3:14-cv-00582, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Sept. 26, 2019, Samsung agreed to pay $2.8 million to resolve class action claims that the company misled customers about their Galaxy S4 speeds.