United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the warranty booklet in the box of Samsung smartphone will not be used to stop the class action lawsuit. The court decided that two class action lawsuits from the Samsung customer to proceed.
The Court of Appeals has rejected Samsung request to settle lawsuits in the private arbitration. Instead, the court decided that the two lawsuits may proceed as reported by San Fransisco Examiner.
The lawsuits were filed separately by two customer of the Korean electronic giant Daniel Norcia from San Fransisco and Hoai Dang from San Jose. Norcia sued Samsung for false advertising in the Galaxy S4 which he bought. The false advertising covered speed, performance, and memory capacity of the Galaxy S4.
Such false advertising is obtained by altering the benchmark test. Samsung is accused to rig the testing which resulting the benchmark result to be higher that it actually was. While Dang filed the lawsuits against the company over the value of its Galaxy S3 which dramatically dropped after Samsung was sued by Apple for copyright infringement.
Samsung argued that its customers are bound by forced arbitration clause included in the warranty booklet upon purchasing the company’s products according to report from Engadget. However the panel of three judges disagreed with the company.
The judges led by Chief Judge Sydney Thomas and Circuit Judge Carlos Bea and Sandra Ikuta decided unanimously to allow class action lawsuit against Samsung to proceed. The court ruled said that written warranty argument is contractual, but it does not bind obligations to buyers.
"Language in a written warranty agreement is ‘contractual’ in the sense that it creates binding, legal obligations on the seller, but a warranty does not impose binding obligations on the buyer,” the court ruling stated.
Prior to the ruling, the court heard the two cases in back-to-back oral arguments in October last year.
Watch the proceeding in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as legal team for the plaintiff and defendant stated their argument below:
