Judge Dismisses Some Claims in Apple Class Action MDL

A judge has dismissed some of the claims brought by consumers in an Apple class action MDL. The judge threw out Apple class action lawsuit claims by the plaintiffs related to false advertising and allegations of federal hacking law violations.

The plaintiffs in that Apple class action lawsuit argued that the software updates on iPhones slowed the phones down significantly, and the plaintiffs believed that Apple’s update violated current federal hacking laws. While those claims were thrown out, claims alleging trespassing and violation of state hacking laws remain.

Although the judge in the Apple class action lawsuit said that other overseas claims in the future could be brought against the company, only U.S. residents were eligible to file claims through California’s False Advertising Law.

Apple’s user agreement requires that California law be applied to all claims, and the judge said his decision left the door open for overseas consumers to initiate their own claims based on California law, just not under the false advertising law.

Apple previously argued that their user agreement covers software and not hardware, but the judge rejected this claim and said overseas customers would still be able to file their own claims against the company.

The premise of the Apple class action lawsuit is that software updates were purposefully made to make older iPhone models run more slowly, prompting those consumers to make investments in new models.

The consumers who filed the Apple class action lawsuit claim that the company is deceptive in how they present the phones and that ultimately, customers are pushed to buy newer models after getting frustrated with the speed of the other models post-update, even if the rest of the phone functions fine at that point.

The judge had previously recommended to the plaintiffs in the Apple class action that they choose their six strongest cases at the time of consolidation, after which Apple filed for dismissal of those selected. Those claims alleged violations of federal and state consumer protection laws and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The judge determined that the claims related to the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act did not demonstrate, according to the plaintiff’s evidence, that Apple engaged in some form of deception to access those phones.

In dismissing the false advertising claims, the judge found that the plaintiffs had not shown enough evidence that the Apple products misled consumers in relation to expectations about battery life. Furthermore, claims linked to the iPad and iPhone 5s were thrown out, since the judge says that the plaintiffs had not been able to show that slower speeds impacted those versions of Apple products.

The consumers are represented by Mark Molumphy and Joseph W. Cotchett of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLLP and David A. Straite and Laurence D. King of Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer LLP.

The Apple Class Action Lawsuit is In re: Apple Inc Device Performance Litigation, Case No. 5:18-md-02827, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.