Fitbit Can’t Escape Heart Rate Tracker Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Despite Fitbit’s best efforts to dismiss the case, a California federal judge has decided to allow the majority of claims in a class action lawsuit that alleges Fitbit devices cannot accurately read heart rates as advertised.

This week, U.S. District Judge James Donato ruled to not dismiss a class action lawsuit that claims Fitbit falsely advertised that its fitness devices accurately track heart rates.

Judge Donato dismissed a claim of unjust enrichment, but will allow plaintiff Rob Dunn the chance to amend his complaint.

In their attempt to have the false advertising class action lawsuit dismissed, Fitbit alleged that much of the marketing material around the product were merely “inactionable puffery,” instead of promises for how a product should perform.

However, Judge Donato disagreed with this stance, and stated that Dunn had sufficiently claimed that the company fraudulently marketed the Fitbit devices.

Fitbit had argued that the false heart rate class action lawsuit should be dismissed because in the plaintiff’s claim of false advertising. The company says Dunn had not provided specific examples of the advertising statements that he believed to be fraudulent.

The court countered this statement by noting that Dunn did in fact share an image of the Fitbit packaging for reference. Allegedly, this packaging touted the device’s ability to give an “automatic, 24/7 wrist-based heart rate” and a “continuous heart rate.”

Instead of dismissing the Fitbit heart rate device class action lawsuit, Judge Donato decided to give Dunn the chance to amend his complaint, saying that the Fitbit class action is already “replete with examples of actionable misdescriptions of specific or absolute characteristics of a product.”

The amended complaint is expected to include an image of the Fitbit package, and will highlight Dunn’s claim that he read the package before purchasing the product, relying on the package’s claims to make his purchasing decision.

Additionally, Judge Donato preserved Dunn’s breach of warranty claim, because he adequately argued that Fitbit’s devices failed to perform to promised standards of accurately tracking heart rate, as was advertised on the products’ packaging and elsewhere.

Judge Donato also preserved Dunn’s claim that Fitbit omitted important information in communications with consumers, because allegedly, the company was conducting research on the technology behind its devices, and therefore should have know about the true performance of the devices.

The federal judge did dismiss Dunn’s allegation that the company unjustly enriched itself through its false advertising, arguing that it did not constitute an independent claim.

The Fitbit owners are represented by Jonathan D. Selbin, Elizabeth J. Cabraser, Kelly M. Dermody and Kevin R. Budner of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; Robert Klonoff of Robert H. Klonoff LLC; and Rosemary M. Rivas, Adam C. McCall, Andrea Clisura and Courtney E. Maccarone of Levi & Korsinsky LLP.

The Fitbit False Heart Rate Class Action Lawsuit is Kate McLellan, et al. v. Fitbit Inc., Case No. 3:16-cv-00036, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.