Apple Must Face Disappearing iMessage Class Action Lawsuit

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A California federal judge has ordered Apple Inc. to face a class action lawsuit over text messages that allegedly disappear after iPhone users switched to non-Apple devices.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled that Apple must face a claim by plaintiff Adrienne Moore that the vanishing text messages interfered with her Verizon Wireless contract, which was in place at the time she switched from an iPhone 4 to a Samsung Galaxy S5 in April.

Moore’s class action lawsuit alleges Apple failed to notify iPhone users that its iOS 5 operating system would interfere with the delivery of “countless” test messages from other Apple device users when an iPhone user switched to a non-Apple device.

“Plaintiff does not have to allege an absolute right to receive every text message in order to allege that Apple’s intentional acts have caused an actual breach or disruption of the contractual relationship,” Judge Koh wrote. However, the judge did dismiss some consumer protection law claims.

Moore filed the Apple class action lawsuit in May, alleging that messages sent via iMessage to former users who had switched to non-Apple devices were not forwarded by Apple. She claims that she had been prompted to upgrade her iPhone 4’s operating system, and that the upgrade had caused the iMessage service to become the default text message routing service. She says that iMessage remained the default text message service even after she switched to a non-Apple device, and that she was no longer able to receive messages sent from her friends with Apple devices.

“Apple knew but never disclosed that its iMessage service and Message application would prevent Apple device owners from receiving text messages sent to them from other Apple users once these Apple device owners replaced their devices with non-Apple wireless devices,” the iMessage class action lawsuit alleges. Moore claims she would not have downloaded the iMessage service if she had known she would be prevented from receiving text messages on non-Apple devices.

According to court documents, Apple claims it never promised customers that its iMessage or Messages programs would recognize when users switched to a non-Apple device. “Apple takes customer satisfaction extremely seriously, but the law does not provide a remedy when, as here, technology simply does not function as plaintiff subjectively believes it should,” the company argued.

Apple has since created an online tool that helps users who have switched to non-Apple devices receive messages from iPhone users.

Moore is represented by Roy A. Katriel of the Katriel Law Firm.

The Apple iMessage Class Action Lawsuit is Adrienne Moore v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:14-cv-02269, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Aug. 4, 2015, a federal judge refused to certify the Apple iMessage class action lawsuit after finding that the proposed Class was too broad.