Sam Smith & Normani's 'Dancing With a Stranger' Lawsuit Goes to Trial

The dance floor is about to become a courtroom. A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that the long-running copyright battle over Sam Smith and Normani's massive 2019 hit "Dancing With a Stranger" must go before a jury — and the implications for music copyright law could be significant.

The Judge's Ruling, Unpacked

U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu issued a 27-page ruling Wednesday, rejecting Smith and Normani's motion for summary judgment, according to Rolling Stone. The case was brought by songwriters Jordan Vincent, Christopher Miranda, and Rosco Banlao — the trio behind a 2015 song that shares not just a name but, they argue, a hook with the multi-platinum smash. Judge Hsu found that the plaintiffs had raised enough questions about "striking similarity" to warrant a full trial, shutting down the defendants' bid to end things early.

Perhaps the sharpest part of the ruling was Hsu's pushback against the defense's analytical strategy. Smith and Normani's legal team had argued that breaking down the two songs element by element — pitch, rhythm, metric placement, contour — showed no real similarity. The judge wasn't buying it. Dissecting any two songs down to their bare components, he noted, would make them seem unrelated regardless of how alike they actually sound as a whole. The Ninth Circuit has been clear: examining musical elements in isolation misses the forest for the trees.

A Case That Refused to Die

This lawsuit has had more lives than a pop comeback tour. Originally filed in March 2022, it was dismissed the following year before being revived on appeal. In July, lawyers for Smith and Normani made another push to kill the case, arguing that the plaintiffs' experts hadn't met the legal bar for "striking similarity." That effort failed, and now a jury will weigh in on whether one of the biggest songs of 2019 owes its signature hook to a lesser-known 2015 track.

For fans tracking Sam Smith's legal battle over 'Dancing With a Stranger', this ruling marks a pivotal escalation in a dispute that has quietly shadowed one of the artist's defining commercial moments.

The Unauthorized Sample Wrinkle

The defense also attempted a creative counter-move: arguing that the plaintiffs' 2015 song was itself built on unauthorized samples from "The Ha Dance" by Masters at Work and "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins, which would strip it of copyright protection. Defense attorney Peter Anderson made the case at a September hearing that these samples ran throughout the very hook being disputed — making them far from irrelevant, regardless of how subtle they might sound.

Judge Hsu acknowledged the argument but found that the defendants hadn't conclusively established that the plaintiffs' song was actually derived from those samples. That question, too, heads to the jury.

Independent Creation — A Question for the Jury

Smith and Normani's camp has maintained that "Dancing With a Stranger" was created independently, with no knowledge of the plaintiffs' 2015 recording. Under normal circumstances, independent creation is a solid copyright defense. But Hsu made clear it isn't enough to win at the summary judgment stage — it has to be weighed against the full weight of evidence, and that weighing belongs to a jury.

The plaintiffs' attorney called the ruling a vindication, expressing confidence that the musicological questions at the heart of the case deserve a proper trial.

What It Means for Sam Smith

Beyond the legal machinery, this development puts a complicated spotlight on one of the most commercially successful periods of Sam Smith's career. "Dancing With a Stranger" was a crossover juggernaut — breezy, infectious, and seemingly effortless. The idea that its most memorable element could be traced to an earlier, obscure track is precisely the kind of question copyright juries are built to untangle.

With new music on Smith's horizon and a creative chapter that continues to evolve, this trial will be one of the more closely watched legal showdowns in recent pop music history. Trial dates have not yet been announced.