Moving Samsung Cases to Calif. Supported by 2 More Plaintiffs

Two more plaintiffs from among the dozen or so fraud class actions over Samsung’s summertime data breach support the motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer all the cases to U.S. District Court for Northern California and consolidate them under Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, said their response to the motion Thursday (case number 3005). John Bennett filed his class action against Samsung in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and Jay Gelizon filed his in the 8th Judicial District Court, Clark County, Nevada. They’re likely the only cases filed so far in venues other than California and New Jersey. The complaints were subsequently removed to federal courts in Chicago and Las Vegas, respectively. Though a group of New Jersey plaintiffs have moved to consolidate the actions in U.S. District Court in Newark (see 2210260001), Bennett and Gelizon think the Northern District of California “would be the best, most efficient and most streamlined forum” for all the class actions, said their filing. One of their rationales for transferring the cases to San Francisco and consolidating them there under a single judge, they said, is that that’s where Samsung’s “operations are based.” Samsung corporately runs an R&D lab in Silicon Valley, but Samsung Electronics America is headquartered in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey.