Samsung Refrigerator Lawsuits: What Three Federal Cases Show

People searching for a Samsung refrigerator lawsuit usually want to know two things: is there a settlement, and can they claim from it. On the federal court records we read, the answer to both is no, at least for now. Three proposed class actions in the District of New Jersey, where Samsung’s US arm is based, tell the story. This page goes through each one using the judges’ own orders. What the owners said in these cases are allegations. No court has ruled that Samsung’s refrigerators are defective, and Samsung asked the court to dismiss the claims in both cases whose rulings we read.

The three cases at a glance

Jordan v. Samsung: the cooling case

This is the case most people mean. Eight owners from six states sued Samsung Electronics America and its Korean parent. The judge’s order of August 15, 2023, describes what they alleged.

• A defect in the evaporators that left the refrigerators unable to hold food at a safe temperature, with temperature swings, ice build-up, leaks, ice-maker faults and noise as the symptoms.
• The models were generally French-door refrigerators with a pull-out freezer at the bottom.
• Samsung, they said, routinely refused warranty claims based on the fault.
• The complaint pointed to hundreds of reports made to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) over more than two years, and said 62 of them mentioned food poisoning.

The court took those allegations as true for the purpose of the motion, as courts must at that stage, and did not decide whether they were. It made two rulings.

• August 15, 2023. The consumer fraud claims could go ahead. The warranty claims could go ahead for one owner only, Matthew Jordan. The others had not said that they asked Samsung for a repair, replacement or refund within the one-year warranty period.
• May 31, 2024. After the complaint was amended, the court again dismissed the implied warranty claims of every owner except Jordan. It cited earlier decisions holding that such a claim fails where the warranty period had already expired when the defect was discovered.

Less than a month later the court paused the case “pending consummation of settlement”, and on August 16, 2024, it was dismissed with prejudice at the parties’ joint request. We saw no order certifying a class and no notice to owners on the docket, which means the agreement was between Samsung and the people named in the case. Its terms are not in the entries we read.

Whicker v. Samsung: the ice-tray case

Five owners sued in September 2025, proposing a nationwide class with subclasses for Arizona, California, North Carolina and Oregon. According to the court’s opinion, they allege that the automatic ice maker in certain models has a tray “made of a brittle plastic that cracks when it is twisted”, so that water drips through into the ice bin. The opinion lists the models as RF32CG5400SR and RS27T5200SR and the ranges beginning RF32CG, RF27CG and RS27T5200. The owners bought theirs between December 2021 and October 2023.

On September 8, 2026, Judge Susan Wigenton granted Samsung’s motion and dismissed all nine counts. Among her reasons:

• The one-year limited warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship, and the court read the owners’ complaint as alleging a design defect.
• Two of the owners had never contacted Samsung about the fault. One who did, within the warranty, was given a replacement ice-maker assembly.

The judge declined Samsung’s request to strike the nationwide class allegations, calling it premature. The docket shows an amended complaint entered on October 8, 2026, so the case is still alive. Nothing in it has been proved.

Bianchi v. Samsung: the 2017 case

The oldest of the three ran for almost seven years. Television reports from 2017 describe a class action filed that year over Samsung ice makers, but we could not open the Bianchi complaint to confirm its wording, so we describe only what the docket shows. From 2021 the parties filed regular status letters. A court order of March 2023 refers to “the implementation of the settlement in this matter”. Some plaintiffs were dismissed by agreement in October 2021, and the rest on December 28, 2023. As with Jordan, we saw no class settlement approved by the court and no claim process for other owners.

What the regulator has done

Separately from the lawsuits, Consumer Reports reported in 2022 that it had counted 613 complaints about Samsung refrigerators in the CPSC’s public database for 2019 to 2021, and that the CPSC confirmed it was investigating. Samsung disputed that its products were defective. Complaints in that database are submitted by the public and are not verified. The recall notices we read did not include one for a Samsung refrigerator. Our report on refrigerator problems sets this beside the owner-survey data for all brands.

What an owner can take from this

We cannot tell you whether you have a claim. What the two written rulings do show is how much turned on timing and paperwork. This is our reading of them, not legal advice.

• Report a fault to Samsung while the warranty is running. In both Jordan and Whicker, owners who had not asked the company for a repair in time lost their warranty claims at the first hurdle.
• Do it in a way that leaves a record. Keep the service ticket number, the dates and any written reply.
• Know which warranty applies. The Jordan order describes one year of general cover, with longer cover alleged for the sealed system and the compressor. Read the warranty that came with your model; our guide to what an appliance warranty covers explains the usual limits.
• Report safety problems to the CPSC. A refrigerator that will not hold a safe temperature is a food-safety issue. See how to report an unsafe product.

LG has faced a different set of cases, about compressors, which did produce a class settlement. We cover those in LG refrigerator lawsuits.

What we could not confirm

• The terms on which Jordan and Bianchi ended. They are not on the public docket.
• What the Bianchi complaint alleged, in its own words.
• What the amended Whicker complaint of October 8, 2026, says. Only its docket entry was available.
• Whether cases have been filed in state courts or in other federal districts. We searched the federal docket by case name and read these three.

How we researched this

We read the dockets of the three cases on CourtListener, the court’s letter orders of August 15, 2023, and May 31, 2024, in Jordan, and the opinion of September 8, 2026, in Whicker. We did not read the complaints themselves, did not test any refrigerator and did not contact Samsung. If Samsung wishes to respond, we will publish its response. Last checked: October 9, 2026.