Samsung Must Face Shattering Galaxy Camera Class Action Lawsuit

A federal judge recently told Samsung that they must face a class action which alleges that the company’s smart phones are defective and come equipped with camera lenses prone to spontaneous shattering.

U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton denied Samsung’s motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit brought by two consumers, ruling that Samsung must face the allegations that their phone camera lenses are prone to shattering.

Although Judge Hamilton denied Samsung’s dismissal bid, the fate of the Samsung class action is not secure yet. The judge has repeatedly said that she wants to know “sooner than later” if potential Class Members are bound by an arbitration agreement.

She reiterated that she doesn’t want to open discovery on millions of putative Class Members if only 115 opted out of Samsung’s arbitration agreement.

“That’s something that we need to know now, in my view, and that’s how I’m going to manage the case,” Judge Hamilton said.

The California federal judge also called Samsung’s strategy into questions, finding the company’s arguments based on an arbitration agreement “troubling.”

She stated that there were a sufficient number of consumers who had opted out of the arbitration to form a Class, and that a motion to strike class allegations was not the way to enforce an arbitration agreement.

“I don’t think that’s the appropriate mechanism for doing what I think you’re attempting to do in this motion,” she told counsel for Samsung. “But I also don’t think that full­-fledged class discovery on potentially millions of people is required to get to the core issue here. If indeed the majority of class members have not opted out, that needs to be adjudicated sooner than later.”

Further arguments regarding the arbitration agreement came from the plaintiffs. Plaintiff counsel said that other federal courts had ruled that the arbitration agreement from Samsung was invalid.

However, Judge Hamilton said she was not bound by the rulings of other federal courts and would want to make her own ruling on the matter.

The Samsung class action was originally filed by lead plaintiffs Lynette Pang and Timo Masalin in March 2018. Pang and Masalin alleged that Samsung knowingly sold smart phones with a glass covering the camera lenses which was prone to shattering within weeks of being used.

Samsung allegedly received around 150 complaints about the issue but failed to take action to help their consumers remedy the problem.

“This defect is common and known to Samsung, as Samsung has received countless complaints about it,” the Samsung class action claimed.

Pang and Masalin seek to represent a Class of California consumers who purchased or leased phones allegedly affected by the glass shattering issue, including: Samsung Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge, Galaxy S7 Active, Galaxy S8 or Galaxy Note 8.

Plaintiffs are represented by Michael Dean Woerner and Matthew M. Gerend of Keller Rohrback LLP.

The Samsung Galaxy Shattering Camera Class Action Lawsuit is Pang, et al. v. Samsung Electronics America Inc., Case No. 4:18-­cv­-01882, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Jan. 18, 2019, Samsung argues that a smartphone owner included in a shattering phone camera class action lawsuit should have her claims arbitrated because she didn’t opt out of the arbitration agreement with the phone carrier.