Samsung Seeks to Compel Galaxy S21 Class Action to Arbitration
Plaintiff Tiffany McDougall’s allegations that Samsung misrepresented the storage capacity of her Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G smartphone “must be resolved through arbitration” under the terms and conditions she agreed to when she bought the device, said Samsung’s memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-00168) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan in support of its motion to compel.
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McDougall’s “theory” that the Galaxy S21's preloaded operating system and other content consumed some of its storage space “suffers from numerous fatal defects,” said the memorandum. But McDougall was informed “in multiple conspicuous ways” that using and keeping the device “constituted acceptance of an agreement to arbitrate any claims that might arise,” it said. She also was repeatedly informed she could opt out of the arbitration agreement within 30 days of purchase, but “she elected not to do so,” it said.
Though the arbitration agreement “clearly and unmistakably delegates” to the arbitrator the issue of whether it encompasses McDougall’s claims, if the court reaches the issue here, those claims “fall neatly” within the arbitration agreement’s “broad” scope, said the memorandum. Courts in the 2nd Circuit “routinely compel arbitration involving less decisive assent and less extensive notice of the contract’s terms,” it said. Courts throughout the U.S. have enforced “virtually identical agreements” between Samsung and its product users, “and thus compelled the parties to arbitrate their disputes,” it said: This court “should do the same.”
McDougall’s complaint asserts claims on behalf of two putative multistate classes for breach of contract, negligence, fraud, unjust enrichment and violations of various state consumer-protection statutes, said the memorandum. Her claims “fail on the merits for a host of reasons,” it said. The “chief reason” is that there’s “nothing false” about Samsung’s statements that the Galaxy S21 carries 128 GB of storage, as McDougall concedes, it said. Her complaint “likewise concedes” that Samsung “openly disclosed” that a portion of the Galaxy S21’s memory was occupied by existing content, it said.
But the court need not consider why McDougall’s complaint lacks merit, “because this case does not belong in court at all,” said the memorandum. “It belongs in arbitration.”
When McDougall bought her Galaxy S21 in September 2021, Samsung “prominently informed her at every stage of the unboxing process” of the existence of the arbitration agreement and the opt-out method, before she gave her “affirmative assent” to the terms of that agreement, said the memorandum. She received the notice, first, on the Galaxy S21’s packaging, second, in a terms and conditions pamphlet inside the box, and third, during the “clickwrap” set-up process, it said. She accepted the arbitration agreement “when she unboxed the device, used the device, and then retained the device, all with notice that doing so constituted acceptance,” it said.