Mikey Campbell
A California judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit claiming Apple sold MacBooks to customers knowing the laptops contained defective logic boards and would fail within two years.
In his order, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup agreed with Apple's motion to dismiss a suit from May 2014 alleging the company defrauded its customers through willful sale of faulty hardware and false advertisement. The judgment was first spotted by Reuters.
According to the ruling, plaintiffs Uriel Marcus and Benedict Verceles filed a class action complaint in Texas on behalf of all MacBook owners who bought their device after May 20, 2010. The original argument alleges Apple marketed, sold and continues to sell laptops with defective logic boards.
Apple knows about this logic board defect. Combining a defective product design and manufacturing plants in China that engage in human rights violations (including child labor) Defendant Apple and CEO Timothy Cook have known about the situation for years.
Plaintiffs cited numerous Online Apple Store "reviews" and Apple's own Support Communities forum as evidence that the company was aware of the issue. The suit avers that Apple "markets the reliability and functionality of the logic board" through its promotional campaigns. For example, the company labels its MacBook line as "state of the art," "breakthrough" and "the world's most advanced notebook."
However, Judge Alsup found no evidence that plaintiffs relied on Apple's statements when purchasing the products, a requirement for finding fraud under the case's scope. Further, Marcus and Verceles failed to prove Apple committed a breach of implied warranty as the pair used their computers for 18 months and two years, respectively. Verceles had his MacBook Pro replaced by Apple for a logic board failure, but that was covered under warranty.
Plaintiffs have until Jan. 22 to file an amended complaint that addresses Judge Alsup's findings.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
42 Comments
i guess apple have California judges on there payroll WOW!!!
How did the plaintiffs ever think they could win this? Even if Apple knowingly sold faulty hardware (which is highly doubtful) how on earth do you plan on proving that in a court of law?!
So the time limit of expecting a working machine is 18 months?
I'm not sure how this plays out legally, but if my MacBook died after 2 years I'd be mad too.
(For the record my Macs have lasted much longer than 2 years - some going 6 years.)
My daughters early 2011 MBP with i7 and AMD 6750M only works if it never goes to sleep, usually. This model is the worst Mac we've ever purchased and there's no way to fix it. A replacement board might work or might not. Am I upset, yes. What can I do now? Probably nothing. The MBP lasted 3 years and a few months, not a great result for Apple products that usually last for a lot longer than this.
This lawsuit was nuts. If they just went for a high defect rate rather than an obscure conspiracy theory about planned obsolescence it might have gone somewhere. Involving child labour as an ad hominem red herring is nothing more than trying to strong arm the company into settlement. The evidence presented wasn't even appropriate for the claims being made. I firmly believe something should be done about these laptops, but this case had a thick coat crazy all over it.