Apple, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook may not yet have been given deity status by the throngs of Apple fanboys, as the late Steve Jobs once had, but that doesn’t mean the company still can’t occasionally walk on water, with news Wednesday that the tech giant had managed to win a ruling in regards to class-action status in a lawsuit pertaining to its obtrusive phone messaging platform.

The lawsuit, according to reports filled by one Adrienne Moore, alleges that Apple’s iMessage unfairly retained text messages sent from other users of Apple devices and could not be fairly transferred, or particularly in this case, the plaintiff couldn’t transfer them when she upgraded her phone to an Android-powered Samsung smartphone.

The attempt to gain class-action status went further, stating that users switching away from the iPhone to other devices were “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-service contracts” due to the issue, with Moore stating that Apple failed to successfully elaborate on the “interference” that switching platforms would cause.

Class-action status would have extended Moore’s lawsuit to include all affected users of the iMessage restrictions, and could have in theory potentially resulted in a significant settlement or court judgment.

Given consideration to the application for class-action status, United States District Judge Lucy H. Koh ruled it wasn’t clear that all included members in a class-action were actually affected by the difficulties as detailed by Moore. Koh went further and ruled that there was no direct “contractual breach or interference” with the way iMessage works, hence giving Apple a further win.

“Even if Moore is correct in arguing iMessage has systematic flaws that could result in the disruption of text messaging services, that determination does not assist the court in determining whether iMessage actually caused the proposed class members to suffer any interference,” the Judge stated in her ruling.

The case isn’t over for Apple, but the removal of class-action status means that even if it loses the case eventually, it will only be forced to pay compensation to the plaintiff versus anyone else with a similar gripe after deciding to upgrade their phones to Android.

It’s not clear from reports when, or even if, the rest of the case will proceed.

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