Judge Denies Apple’s Bid To Dismiss FaceTime Class Action

UPDATE: November 2020, the Apple FaceTime class action settlement is now open. Click here to learn more.

A federal judge has rejected Apple’s bid to dismiss a class action lawsuit from customers who claim that the company intentionally prevented FaceTime from working with older operating systems.

This move for dismissal was Apple’s second effort at dodging the FaceTime claims. Both dismissal bids were rejected by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.

Judge Koh said that the evidence could be interpreted to mean that Apple did indeed prevent FaceTime from working in the case of older operating systems, as the consumers had claimed. According to Judge Koh, the consumers presented enough evidence supporting their claims, so the FaceTime class action lawsuit could move forward.

This presented a contrast to Apple’s assertion that the customers and made an “unsound” argument. Apple claimed that just because it did not create a fix for older operating systems didn’t mean that it intentionally caused FaceTime to stop working for older operating systems.

The customers said that because Apple could have fixed FaceTime for old operating systems and chose not to, it effectively broke FaceTime for many users.

The FaceTime class action states that Apple’s refusal to fix FaceTime caused many people to either not have access to FaceTime at all or have their device work sluggishly, because FaceTime’s incompatibility with the older operating systems took a toll on the phones’ functionality.

In her decision to reject the dismissal bid, Judge Koh said that Apple knew that there was a bug in FaceTime, but only fixed it for the most recent operating system, not for the older ones.

A case management conference for the Apple FaceTime fix class action lawsuit is scheduled for Sept. 4. The trial is scheduled to start in April 2020.

The FaceTime old operating system incompatibility class action lawsuit was filed in February 2017 by iPhone 4 and 4S owners. These iPhone users said that Apple used non-relay technology when updating FaceTime in an attempt to save money.

The customers claim that older operating systems are not compatible with that technology, and the update caused FaceTime to not work with older phones.

The iPhone customers argue that they were injured by Apple’s conduct because they could not use their phones to their full functionality.

In Apple’s first attempt to have the FaceTime claims dismissed, the company claimed that they provided a disclaimer in its service agreement that services could be discontinued.

However, Judge Koh determined that this was not grounds to have the FaceTime failure class action lawsuit dismissed, because according to Judge Koh, the disclaimer only applied to the disability of “services.”

Judge Koh determined that FaceTime and the iOS software count as features, not services, so therefore they are not covered in the disclaimer.

The iPhone users are represented by Allan Steyer, Jill M. Manning, and D. Scott Macrae of Steyer Lowenthal Boodrookas Alvarez & Smith LLP; and by Bruce L. Simon, Daniel L. Warshaw, and Alexander L. Simon of Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP.

The FaceTime Update Class Action Lawsuit is Grace v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:17-cv-00551, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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