US federal court decertifies class action lawsuit against Apple News
RuinDig/Yuki Uchida, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US federal court decertifies class action lawsuit against Apple

A US federal judge on Monday decertified a class action law suit brought against Apple by over ten million Americans who allege the company violated antitrust laws through monopolization of the iPhone app marketplace.

The lawsuit was originally brought in December 2011 and covers Apple actions since July 2008. Plaintiffs claim that because Apple restricts customers to only buying apps through the Apple Store, the company has monopolized the iPhone apps market, allowing it to avoid market competition and charge higher prices for app-related purchases.

District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers originally denied the class action suit in March 2022, holding that millions of individuals included in the suit likely suffered no real harm. In February 2024, plaintiffs brought a new suit with a significantly reduced group size, only including those who spent more then $10 on app or in-app content. The judge granted the revised suit  class action certification.

However, Rogers and the US District Court for the Northern District of California reversed the 2024 decision on Monday. The reversal was based on a report offered by an expert hired by Apple, which found that overlooked redundancies improperly increased the suit’s class size. For example, hypothetical account and purchase information for “Rob Pepper” and “Robert Pepper” would be counted as two people instead of one person with multiple accounts.

Defendants claimed the error made it impossible to determine which users were harmed and likely increased the percentage of un-harmed or nonexistent users counted among the class. The court agreed, writing:

Consumer plaintiffs proffer no methodology to match Apple ID accounts to consumers, and therefore no way to show that antitrust injury is ‘capable of being established through a common body of evidence, applicable to the whole class.’

Apple released a statement to AppleInsiders which expressed their approval of Rogers’ decision, stating, “We continue to invest significantly to make the App Store a safe and trusted place for users to discover apps and a great business opportunity for developers.”

The class decertification poses significant obstacles for plaintiffs as pursuing multiple individual suits significantly increases potential court time and costs.

THIS DAY @ LAW

WWII National War Labor Board established

On January 12, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt revived the National War Labor Board (NWLB) for World War II. In order to prevent wartime labor stoppages, the NWLB was set up to arbitrate labor disputes that arose during the war. The NWLB also managed wage controls over the airplane, automobile, shipping, mining, telegraph, and railway industries during the war. The original NWLB was created by President Woodrow Wilson during World War I for largely the same purposes. Read Cornell University's collection of NWLB files from both World Wars.