Court dismisses scaled-back lawsuit over texts misdirected by Apple's iMessage

A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Apple over the company's iMessage system, which can misdirect texts once iPhone owners switch over to Android, a report said on Wednesday.

Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple's motion for summary judgment in the case after the company discovered that two of the three remaining plaintiffs had only gotten rid of their iPhones after they filed suit, thus making them unable to show whether texts sent to their phone numbers went to the right device, according to Business Insider.

One of the plaintiffs, Bouakhay Joy Backhaut, previously claimed that a fellow plaintiff — husband Adam Backhaut — had traded in her iPhone when buying a new Android device. A friend of the couple, Kenneth Morris, was the third plaintiff. Bouakhay at one point asked to be dismissed as a named plaintiff.

The case once had other plaintiffs and was potentially poised to become a class action, but in August Koh declined to grant it that status, saying it would've been "overbroad" because not every person was impacted in the same way, and there might've been varying reasons why texts couldn't be delivered.

At the root of the case is a very real issue. iMessage links a user's iPhone number with his or her Apple ID, and when fellow iPhone owners send a text, the message is preferentially delivered through Apple's network instead of SMS. If a person simply ports their number to a phone on a different platform, texts from iPhone owners may still be delievered to that Apple ID.

Apple was hit with many complaints, and the company's solution was ultimately just a Web tool for deregistering iMessage, and warnings to deactivate both iMessage and FaceTime before switching to a new device.

21 Comments

stevie 956 comments · 14 Years

About 8 years ago

Apple did nothing wrong. Of course the suit was dismissed. These Android users just want to hurt Apple.

gatorguy 24609 comments · 13 Years

stevie said:

Apple did nothing wrong. Of course the suit was dismissed. These Android users just want to hurt Apple.

The primary reason it was dismissed is there were no longer any plaintiffs. Two of the original three no longer had iPhones and the third didn't want to be part of it anyway. In any event hasn't Apple corrected that now? I think they have.

jungmark 6927 comments · 13 Years

Wow. They filed suit first then replaced their iPhones? That should be considered plaintiff fraud.

jungmark said:

Wow. They filed suit first then replaced their iPhones? That should be considered plaintiff fraud.

Yes, they had iPhones when they'd filed but betwixt then and now they got rid of them. Therefor they have no way to prove where the messages actually went, their iPhone or Android one.

It was silly court filings from the get-go IMHO. Far too many lawsuits for imaginary harm nowadays. Perhaps folks should just work harder at real jobs like we all used to instead of searching for big windfalls from lawsuits, insurance claims, and lotteries.

cornchip 1943 comments · 11 Years

I've had iMessage issues similar but not exactly like what these folks were experiencing, but not with Droids. My brother switched to Windows phone and can't get group texts, but still gets direct texts. Then I had a friend who still had a BB and he could get the group texts, but the friend with the iPhone wouldn't. Then once BB friend switched to iPhone the other guy started getting the group texts. Very strange.