Apple Can’t Shake ‘Butterfly’ Keyboard Class Action Lawsuit

On Monday, a California federal judge eliminated some claims from a class action lawsuit arguing that Apple knew that its “butterfly” keyboards are likely to fail.

However, the judge refused to throw out the Apple keyboard butterfly defect class action lawsuit entirely, leaving claims that the tech giant committed fraud by omission, among other allegations.

This determination was made by U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila. He tossed the consumers’ argument that Apple breached an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by selling computers with keyboards whose designs allegedly were predisposed to fail.

Apple had previously fought back against this claim, and argued that the Apple warranty covering laptops didn’t include design defects, and only covered “defects in materials and workmanship.”

Judge Davila agreed with this argument and scrapped the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims.

According to Judge Davila, “that the [complaint] describes the defect as a ‘physical’ one does not make the defect a production defect…The [complaint’s] assertions that Apple ‘produced’ the defective keyboard either are conclusory or refer to the keyboard’s design, not their manufacture.”

In the Apple butterfly keyboard class action lawsuit, consumers argued that Apple committed fraud by omission by not warning consumers that the new keyboard design was prone to failure.

In response to this argument, Apple asserted that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently argue that many consumers relied on alleged omissions’ of information when making their purchasing decisions.

Apple also argued that the consumers had not sufficiently pled that Apple had a duty to make consumers aware of the alleged defect, an argument with which Judge Davila disagreed.

The butterfly keyboard class action lawsuit was filed by Zixuan Roa and Kyle Barbaro in May 2018. They claim that MacBooks made after 2015, as well as MacBook Pros made after 2016 possess a keyboard design known as a “butterfly” design which is prone to failure during normal use.

Allegedly, this design is delicate, and two components hinge together under the key in the middle, resembling butterfly wings.

This was reportedly done to enable the keyboard to be thinner, because less space is needed to depress the keys. However, the keys allegedly become nonfunctional if even a small amount of dust or grime can make the keys unable to function.

The consumers argued that repairing the problem can cost between $400 and $700. 

The Apple butterfly keyboard class action lawsuit argues that many consumers have complained about the problem, and Apple has offered an insufficient response to a widespread and serious problem.

The plaintiffs are represented by Daniel C. Girard, Jordan Elias, Adam E. Polk, and Simon S. Grille of Girard Gibbs LLP; Benjamin F. Johns, and Andrew W. Ferich of Chimicles & Tikellis LLP.

The Apple MacBook Butterfly Keyboard Class Action Lawsuit is Rao and Barbaro v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:18-cv-02813, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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