A US federal judge has indicated he will reject Sam Smith and Normani's bid to have a copyright lawsuit over their hit "Dancing With a Stranger" dismissed, meaning the case is likely to proceed to a jury trial. Songwriter Jordan Vincent claims the 2019 chart-topper copied the hook from his own 2015 song of the same name, and the long-running dispute has already been through one dismissal and a successful appeal.

At a hearing on Friday, US District Court Judge Wesley L. Hsu said he would deny the singers' motion for summary judgment, rejecting arguments to exclude testimony from Vincent's musicological experts. Because Vincent dropped his claim that the song's creators had access to his track through wide distribution, he must now prove the works are "strikingly" rather than merely "substantially" similar, a higher legal bar, but the judge said this was still a question for a jury rather than something he could rule out as a matter of law. Lawyers for Smith and Normani argued the alleged similarities were musically commonplace and that Vincent's own song relied on uncleared samples from "The Ha Dance" and "Think (About It)", which they said undermined its copyright protection; Vincent's lawyer countered that the dispute was fundamentally musicological and should be left to a jury. Judge Hsu took the matter under submission and will issue a written ruling in due course.