N.J. Samsung Data Breach Plaintiffs Want All the Cases Moved to Newark

An apparent rift is developing in the dozen or more fraud class actions over Samsung’s summertime data breach, between plaintiffs who want the cases consolidated and transferred to the U.S. District Court for Northern California and those who want them centralized and moved to the U.S. District Court for New Jersey.

After an Oct. 7 motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) to assign the consolidated cases to U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco (see 2210140042), plaintiffs in the New Jersey class actions responded in a filing Tuesday (docket 3005) that they want them assigned to U.S. District Judge William Martini in Newark. The Oct. 7 motion positioned Martini as a suggested fallback to Corley. That motion was filed when there were nine class actions against Samsung docketed across the country.

At least four more “tag-along” cases have since been filed, including another class action filed Monday in U.S. District Court for New Jersey. There, plaintiffs Alex Chandler and Seledia Serina, both current Samsung customers, had their personally identifiable information compromised in the massive data breach that Samsung first publicized Sept. 2 but knew about long before that, they alleged in their complaint (docket 2:22-cv-06241). Chandler received “an increased number of phishing emails and spam telephone calls since the data breach,” since the data breach, it said. Serina “has and will spend time mitigating the impact of the breach” by having to review financial statements for any sign of actual or attempted identity theft and by having to replace her previous payment card and closing the account associated with that card, it said.

The New Jersey movants “support transfer for centralization,” but submit “that because Samsung’s corporate headquarters is in New Jersey and the majority of pending actions have been filed in New Jersey, it is a superior transferee choice than the Northern District of California,” said their Tuesday response. All the related actions “make the same core factual allegations, assert essentially the same legal claims, and seek to represent the same or overlapping classes,” it said. The New Jersey movants “agree that transfer for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings is appropriate,” it said.

The New Jersey movants disagree with the plaintiffs in the Oct. 7 motion “that the Northern District of California is the most appropriate transferee court,” said their response. Though Samsung maintains a research subsidiary in California, its corporate headquarters and privacy office are located in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, it said. “The key witnesses and parties are most likely in New Jersey,” and transferring the related actions across the country wouldn't serve anyone’s convenience, it said.

Though Corley is “undoubtedly qualified” to manage the consolidated Samsung class actions, she was recently assigned a nationwide MDL, In Re: Qualcomm Antitrust Litig., (docket 3:17-md-02773), said the response. A series of consolidated class actions allege Qualcomm exploited its position as the dominant global provider of modem chips for cellular devices to extract billions of dollars in “supracompetitive” payments from other industry participants.

“It is not unheard of or impossible” for a single district judge to manage more than one MDL at a time, but “antitrust litigation in general, and antitrust MDLs in particular, tend to be supremely complex and challenging,” said the response. For Corley to preside over the consolidated Samsung class actions “would potentially strain judicial resources which is certainly unnecessary given the other factors which point to New Jersey as the most appropriate transferee forum.”

Martini, to whom all the related actions filed in New Jersey are assigned, “does not currently have an MDL assigned and is highly experienced in managing complex class actions against large corporate defendants,” said the response. He has been a U.S. district judge for more than 20 years, it said: “In just the past five years, Judge Martini has maintained responsibility for multiple complex class actions.”