SAN JOSE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Zoom is again asking a federal judge to throw out lawsuits against it that claim its security systems weren’t up to par.
It’s the second motion to dismiss in three months, as this one follows an amended complaint in a multidistrict litigation proceeding in California federal court. In both motions, Zoom complains that plaintiffs lawyers are hoping to capitalize on the company’s rise to notoriety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Plaintiffs seek to hold Zoom liable on behalf of a nationwide class under a scattershot array of loosely related factual and legal theories, largely drawn from sensationalist news reports,” the Dec. 2 motion says.
“The (First Amended Complaint) is Plaintiffs’ third attempt to state claims upon which relief may be granted, but they still fail to do so.”
New allegations fail to fix the “basic problems with their approach, including their failure to allege any personal harm caused by Zoom,” the motion says.
Several class actions were filed against the company as it gained customers during the coronavirus pandemic this year and were consolidated in San Jose.
Leading the pursuit of the allegations will be Tina Wolfson of Ahdoot & Wolfson and Mark Molumphy of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, both in California. They were appointed co-lead counsel in a multidistrict litigation proceeding in San Jose federal court.
Judge Lucy Koh granted their motions June 30 after receiving applications from nine lawyers to serve those roles.
Lawsuits alleged negligence and violation of laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act. They said Zoom shared the user's personal information, including the type of device and software the user has as well as their network carrier and location, with third parties such as Facebook.
The lawsuits also claim Zoom misrepresented its encryption protocols and failed to prevent unwanted users from crashing meetings (called “Zoombombing”).
But the plaintiffs don’t allege they were harmed by the sharing of any data, Zoom says, nor do they allege they ever relied upon any specific Zoom representations about encryption.
As for Zoombombings, the company is immunized from liability by the Communications Decency Act, it says.