Seagate Technology Hit With Faulty Hard Drive Class Action Lawsuit

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Seagate Technology faces a proposed class action lawsuit in California federal court over claims that the company manufactured faulty hard drives and offered faulty hard drives as warranty replacements.

Plaintiff Christopher Nelson stated that he purchased a Backup Plus hard drive in November 2012, and it suffered a “sudden, complete and catastrophic failure” in early December 2014, rendering it essentially useless.

According to the Seagate class action lawsuit, Nelson received a warranty replacement hard drive from Seagate as part of the warranty that came with the product, and less than a year after he received it, Nelson claimed his replacement hard drive suffered from the same type of catastrophic failure as his original.

The Seagate Backup Plus lawsuit claims that the drives failed “at unreasonable short intervals including, without limitation, less than a year after purchase” and that many consumers experienced hard drive failures “months, weeks or days after their first use.”

Many websites have shown hundreds of consumer complaints about the failure of Seagate hard drives and their warranty replacement hard drives, the Seagate lawsuit stated.

On behalf of himself and a proposed nationwide class, Nelson hopes to represent a group of consumers who purchased at least one Barracuda 3TB hard disk drive or at least one external drive that included the Barracuda 3B, such as the Backup Plus. Nelson also wishes to represent a subclass of South Dakota consumers who purchased the aforementioned hard drive.

The plaintiff claims that Seagate knew that the drives had defects and failed to disclose and remedy the defects, misrepresented the quality and reliability of the hard drives, and replaced failed hard drives with “refurbished” hard drives that had previously failed.

Nelson also claims that Seagate is “charging customers exorbitant sums of money to recover their data.” According to the Backup Plus class action lawsuit, Nelson says Seagate “will not, however, recover data off a customer’s Drive unless the customer pays an ‘engagement fee’ and a ‘recovery fee’ which can ‘easily be over $2000.’”

Nelson brings forth five counts in the Seagate class action lawsuit including violations of the California Unfair Competition Law and California False Advertising Law, breaches of express and implied warranties, and claims that Seagate unjustly enriched itself. The plaintiff also brings forth a count alleging a violation of the South Dakota Deceptive Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Statue on behalf of himself and the South Dakota subclass.

In addition to seeking class certification, Nelson is also seeking on behalf of himself and the potential classes: restitution and/or actual, incidental and consequential damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, equitable relief in the form of restitution and/or disgorgement and profits, costs of litigation and injunctive relief to stop Seagate from continuing its allegedly improper practices.

The lawsuit summarized the actions against Seagate, saying the company “had firsthand knowledge of the Drives’ defects because it examined and tested all Drives sent in by consumers for replacement. Despite this knowledge, Defendant intentionally misrepresented, and continues misrepresent, the Drives as high-performing and reliable, and it chose to conceal rather than disclose the true defective nature of the Drives for its own pecuniary gain.”

Nelson is represented by Jeff D. Friedman and Steve W. Berman of Hagens Bergman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Marc A. Goldrich of Sheller, P.C.

The Seagate Faulty Hard Drive Class Action Lawsuit is Christopher A. Nelson v. Seagate Technology LLC, Case No: 5:16-cv-00523 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On June 15, 2018, a judge says that consumers claiming that Seagate sold defective hard drives must divide into multiple Classes based on the failure rates of the various hard drives.