Apple Watch Class Action To Proceed, Court Rules

Despite its efforts to have claims dismissed, Apple will have to face a class action lawsuit that takes issue with alleged defects in Apple Watches. 

U.S. District Judge Kevin McNulty did substantially reduce the claims in the Apple Watch screen defect class action lawsuit, but did not throw out the case entirely.

Judge McNulty preserved a claim of breach of express warranty in the case of some customers, but tossed two other allegations.

The Apple Watch defect class action lawsuit was filed by Gina Priano-Keyser in April 2019. She claimed that Series 1 and 2 (Second Generation) Apple Watches and Series 3 (Third Generation) Apple Watches possess a design defect. Allegedly, the defect causes the watches’ screens to shatter or crack unexpectedly.

According to Priano-Keyser, her watch’s screen cracked before her warranty was up. She aimed to represent both customers whose watches had failed before the warranty was up, and after.

Judge McNulty decided to allow Priano-Keyser to pursue breach of express warranty claims for customers whose watches failed before the warranty expired, but not on behalf of those customers whose watches failed after their warranty expired.

In reducing the number of claims in the Apple Watch class action lawsuit, Judge McNulty took a different tact than Apple did in arguing that the Apple Watch defect class action lawsuit should be dismissed as a whole.

Apple argued that Priano-Keyser, who had purchased a Series 3 watch, could not represent consumers who had purchased Series 1 and 2 watches. According to the judge, it was appropriate for Priano-Keyser to represent consumers who had purchased all three kinds of watches, in case the defect is the same.

Apple had also attempted to claim that Priano-Keyser’s allegations were not within the scope of Apple’s warranty for the watches, because they concerned a design defect and not a manufacturing one. However, Judge McNulty said that the distinction between a design defect and a manufacturing defect was not an appropriate one to make at this stage in the process.

According to the judge, a previous decision he had made in a different case pointed to the fact that the design versus manufacturing distinction should be made later.

He said that “where the distinction between a defect in design and defect in workmanship is a matter of semantics,” and because Priano-Keyser had sufficiently established that the alleged defect is a manufacturing problem, Apple’s characterization of the alleged defect “should not control whether the complaint survives.”

Have you experienced problems with your Apple Watch? Share your experiences in the comment section below.

The Apple Watch owners are represented by James Shah and Natalie Finkelman Bennett of Shepherd Finkelman Miller & Shah LLP, and by John Edgar and Brendan McNeal of Edgar Law Firm LLC.

The Apple Watch Screen Break Class Action Lawsuit is Gina Priano-Keyser v. Apple Inc., Case No. 2:19-cv-09162, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

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