Davidson v. Apple, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs brought a putative class action alleging that Apple failed to disclose an alleged manufacturing defect in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. According to the plaintiffs, bending during ordinary use could damage circuits and cause the touchscreen to become intermittently or permanently unresponsive. They alleged that Apple knew about the problem before releasing the phones and did not disclose it in the phones’ packaging, setup process, software updates, or other materials.

The case originally included 22 claims. The parties selected 10 claims for litigation, while the remaining claims became known as the “Parked Claims.” After earlier motion practice, only the Parked Claims remained pending for the plaintiffs who were still in the case. Those claims included consumer-protection, false-advertising, negligent-misrepresentation, and unjust-enrichment claims under the laws of California, Connecticut, Michigan, New York, and Utah.

The court had previously denied class certification for the Selected Claims. Those earlier decisions found problems with the plaintiffs’ damages models, including failures to account properly for the likelihood that the defect would appear and the costs covered by Apple’s warranty. The plaintiffs later served a third damages expert report, known as Boedeker 3, after the court had denied permission to redo the survey and after the expert-report deadlines had passed.

Apple’s Motion

Apple moved to deny class certification for the Parked Claims. Apple argued that three doctrines required denial:

- Issue preclusion, which generally prevents a party from relitigating an issue already decided in a separate proceeding; - Law of the case, which generally limits reconsideration of issues already decided in the same case; and - Comity, a principle under which one court may defer to another court’s decision.

Apple also argued that the earlier class-certification rulings concerning the Selected Claims showed that the plaintiffs could not satisfy the requirement for a damages model under Rule 23(b)(3), the class-action provision requiring common issues to predominate over individual ones. Apple argued that the plaintiffs should not be allowed to rely on Boedeker 3 because it was late and would unfairly prejudice Apple.

Court’s Analysis

The court rejected Apple’s issue-preclusion argument because issue preclusion applies to the effect of a decision in a separate action, not to rulings within the same continuing case. The court therefore denied Apple’s motion to the extent it relied on issue preclusion.

The court also rejected the law-of-the-case argument. The plaintiffs remaining in the case were not the same plaintiffs who had filed the earlier motion concerning the Selected Claims. The court held that the earlier ruling had not explicitly decided, or necessarily decided, whether the remaining plaintiffs could obtain class certification for the Parked Claims. The court therefore denied Apple’s motion to the extent it relied on the law-of-the-case doctrine.

The court likewise concluded that comity did not apply. Comity generally concerns deference between different courts, but the earlier and current class-certification issues were being considered within one action by one court. The court therefore denied Apple’s motion to the extent it relied on comity.

The court separately held that Boedeker 3 was untimely and prejudicial to Apple. Fact discovery had closed on November 2, 2018, and expert discovery had closed on March 8, 2019. The court found that the parties had conducted discovery across all of the claims, so the expert-report deadlines applied to the Parked Claims as well as the Selected Claims. The plaintiffs therefore could not rely on Boedeker 3 or submit another late expert report.

Disposition

The court denied Defendant’s motion to deny class certification. This ruling did not itself certify a class. It rejected Apple’s argument that the three identified doctrines automatically barred class certification, while separately ruling that the plaintiffs could not use Boedeker 3 or another untimely expert report.