HP Printer Class Action Lawsuit Limited to California Consumers

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Following a federal judge’s decision, a class action lawsuit over HP printers will go forward but with a smaller plaintiff Class than the plaintiff originally sought to represent.

U.S. District Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell determined that extending claims under the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act to a nationwide Class of plaintiffs would be improper.

The judge narrowed plaintiff Anne Wolf’s proposed Class to encompass only consumers who purchased one of the printers at issue at a physical retail location within the state of California.

Judge O’Connell agreed with HP that the laws of different states are materially different to those of California, and that the case at hand did not implicate any particular interest of the state of California greater than the interests of any other jurisdiction.

In moving for class certification, Wolf relied on the testimony of an expert witness to determine the value of damages. HP moved to strike that expert’s testimony, challenging his qualifications and the bases of his testimony.

Judge O’Connell agreed with HP. The judge found the expert unqualified because, although he had an MBA and years of experience testifying about damages in cases involving financial analysis and forensic economics, he did not have significant expertise in the subject Wolf needed him to speak about – namely, statistical methods and models for predicting consumer behavior.

The expert also failed to demonstrate a reliable methodology for calculating classwide damages, and the methodology he suggested was not sound, Judge O’Connell said.

In her HP class action lawsuit, Wolf alleged that she chose to buy an HP LaserJet Pro P1102w printer based on a representation on the printer’s packaging that said it was equipped with HP Smart Install, a feature that would allow Wolf to “[s]tart printing right away with effortless setup.”

But after Wolf bought the printer and opened its packaging, she claims she found an insert sheet that said the Smart Install feature is disabled by default. The plaintiff says she was unable to get the printer properly connected and installed on her computer.

In a subsequent deposition, witness Curtis Derr testified that HP had begun disabling the Smart Install feature after receiving many customer complaints that it did not work in conjunction with the Windows 8 operating system. Derr testified that Windows 8 cannot recognize the Smart Install feature.

After discovering the incompatibility, HP allegedly delayed updating the labeling for LaserJet printers for about a year.

Wolf’s attorney alleges HP delayed the update to avoid the approximately $700,000 cost of having to scrap and replace hundreds of thousands of stockpiled boxes already printed with the Smart Install labeling.

As certified by Judge O’Connell, the plaintiff Class will consist of “[a] ll consumers, who, between in or about April 2014, and the present, purchased one or more HP Laserjet P1102 printers at a physical, retail location in the state of California, and whose printer was advertised to include the HP Smart Install feature, but was in fact subject to HP’s disablement of the Smart Install Feature.”

Wolf had sought to represent Class Members from across the U.S., regardless of where they purchased their printers.

The plaintiff is represented by attorneys Todd M. Friedman and Adrian R. Bacon of the Law Offices of Todd M. Friedman PC.

The HP Printer False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Wolf v. Hewlett Packard Co., Case No. 5:15-cv-01221, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.