LG Electronics did not agree to a class-action settlement over widespread bootlooping issues with some of its smartphones earlier this month, according to law firm Girard Gibbs LLP which filed for litigation against the company last year. While the matter has ultimately been resolved as originally reported, the attorneys representing the plaintiffs issued a comment to clarify the case never received class-action status, so the settlement itself isn’t class-action in nature, i.e. it cannot benefit the vast majority of the millions of people who purchased one of the Android devices that were the subject of the lawsuit. Instead, only several hundreds of consumers who participated in the litigation targeting the bootlooping issues of the LG G4, G5, V10, V20, and the Nexus 5X are legally entitled to the $700 rebate toward the purchase of a new LG phone or $425 in damages.
Girard Gibbs also revealed that LG agreed to extend the warranty of the affected devices to 30 months from their date of purchase, using that as the basis for the rebate and compensation it offered. Those who haven’t participated in the lawsuit but have a bootlooping device from the company that’s been targeted by the litigation are recommended to contact LG directly and see if they’re able to be compensated by the firm’s customer service department or receive a replacement unit in light of recent developments but must be aware the company isn’t legally compelled to comply with their requests. If that fails, Girard Gibbs says new complainants are welcomed to contact it, indicating that an identical lawsuit with another roster of plaintiffs may be in the works.
The law firm filed to have the litigation classified as being class-action in nature on request of a Los Angeles-based federal court, though the move itself only allowed it to continue pursuing individual arbitrations against the South Korean tech giant on behalf of its clients. While its class-action request wasn’t approved, its existence is likely what led to numerous media outlets reporting the settlement as such, prompting people who haven’t participated in bringing the case to court to think that they’re still able to join the settlement as they would be if it was defined as a class-action one. LG has been accused of delivering a number of devices with high bootlooping rates in recent times but none of its 2017 offerings exhibited similar problems. The term “bootloop” refers to an unusable smartphone state that has the device being stuck on its operating system boot screen, being unable to load up the OS — Android, in LG’s case — that’s powering it.