Judge Stays Pittsburgh Case vs. Samsung to Await Consolidation Ruling

U.S. District Judge Scott Hardy for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh signed an order Thursday granting the joint motion of plaintiff Kenneth Hasson and defendant Samsung to stay Hasson’s fraud class action (see 2212150037) arising out of a summer data breach as all parties in the various class actions await the decision of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to consolidate all the cases and transfer them to a single judge. If the panel denies consolidating the cases, attorneys for Hasson and Samsung will confer and jointly submit a proposed order lifting the stay and also propose a deadline for Samsung's response to Hasson’s complaint, said Hardy’s order. Samsung suggested strongly in an early-November filing it will base its defenses in the various class actions on a motion to compel the disputes to arbitration (see 2211030006). Plaintiffs in the roughly 14 class actions pending against Samsung appear evenly divided between those who want the cases transferred to the Northern District of California or the District of New Jersey. Samsung wants the cases transferred to the U.S. District Court for Nevada.