Judge Battaglia found that, since PSN users got their service free of charge, their claim to have suffered loss should be dismissed.
Last year the PlayStation Network vanished for more than a month, thanks to a wildly successful hack, and shortly afterward aggrieved customers filed a class action lawsuit. The suit has run aground in California and, though the plaintiffs may try to carry on, most of its claims – including negligence and unjust enrichment – have been thrown out.
The big issue, according to Judge Battaglia who presided over the case, was that the plaintiffs had failed to establish loss of money or property. None of the plaintiffs could plausibly argue that their consoles were damaged, or that they valued their consoles less; they couldn’t even claim that they played them less often after the breach than they had before. Moreover, they received PSN services free of cost, and so couldn’t claim to have lost money.
The Judge also failed to be convinced by the plaintiffs’ argument that Sony had been deceitful, in their representations to customers, about the quality of its network security. Judge Battaglia ruled that Sony’s Privacy Policy statement – “there is no such thing as perfect security … we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted to us” – was sufficient that no reasonable customer would have been deceived.
Plaintiffs have until November 9th to file amended complaints but, as it stands at the moment, most of their claims have been struck down or dismissed. A full transcript of the judgment can be found here.
Source: VG24/7
