9th Circuit Panel Remands ‘Toast Plus’ Consumer Protection Claims vs. Apple

The district court properly dismissed with prejudice five counts of Hadona Diep and Ryumei Nagao's complaint against Apple for injuries caused by a malicious app called Toast Plus that they downloaded from the App Store, said a 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court panel memorandum Wednesday (docket 22-16514). That's because those counts were barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, said the memorandum. But the U.S. District Court for Northern California erred by dismissing the plaintiffs’ three consumer protection claims with prejudice and without leave to amend, said the memorandum. Because the plaintiffs could conceivably cure the “pleading deficiencies” in the consumer protection claims, they “should have been afforded the opportunity to amend their complaint,” it said. And because the district court’s denial of leave to amend those claims “was premised on legal error,” the panel vacated the district court's judgment as to those claims, and remanded with instructions to grant the plaintiffs “leave to amend their complaint as to those claims,” it said. Circuit Judges Sidney Thomas and Morgan Christen and 7th Circuit Judge David Hamilton, by designation, sat on the panel.