NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – The fight over where a proposed class action against Apple belongs isn’t over.
The company on July 15 sought to invoke an arbitration clause in the lead plaintiff’s T-Mobile contract, despite that plaintiff previously dropping T-Mobile as a defendant in order to avoid arbitration. Apple says the agreement applies to disputes with third parties, which Apple is in this situation.
Plaintiff Tigran Ohanian claims a “significant security flaw” in iOS software allowed iMessage correspondence and Facetime calls to be directed to and accessed by third parties. His lawyers at Oved & Oved sued Apple and T-Mobile.
T-Mobile’s arbitration clause has been enforced in other cases, Apple says.
“Apple can enforce T-Mobile’s arbitration agreement against Ohanian,” the motion to compel states. “Here, the arbitration agreement Ohanian agreed to explicitly includes and applies to claims against third parties like Apple whenever a plaintiff sues them as part of the same proceeding as T-Mobile.
“That is precisely what Ohanian has done here. And under New York law (which Ohanian contends applies here), a non-signatory m ay enforce an arbitration agreement where the ‘claims arise under the subject matter of the underlying agreement’ and ‘there is a close relationship between’ the signatory and non-signatory.”
Oved & Oved has attached another plaintiff, Reggie Lopez, to the case. The arbitration agreement at issue stated the customer agreed to arbitrate “any and all claims or disputes in any way related to or concerning the agreement, our privacy policy, our services, devices or products.”