Plaintiffs Urge Court to Keep B&N Nook Class Action Lawsuit Alive

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Plaintiffs in a potential Barnes & Noble class action lawsuit have asked a Pennsylvania federal judge to allow the lawsuit, which alleges the company’s Nook chargers are defective, to continue in court.

In her opposition to Barnes and Noble’s motion to dismiss the complaint, lead plaintiff Michelle Hainley maintains that she properly pleaded allegations against the bookstore giant.

Hainley argues, “B&N was well aware of the problem. Despite this fact, B&N continues to sell its defective charging cables to unsuspecting customers without full disclosure and continues to make positive untrue statements regarding the quality of its products.”

The original Barnes & Noble Nook charger class action lawsuit was filed by Hainley in October and it alleged that the chargers for the Nook e-reader were defective due to the charger fraying and splitting apart and ultimately failing. Hainley claimed that the chargers only function for a few months before ceasing to work. Two models were named in the Barnes & Noble class action lawsuit: the Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch.

Hainley contacted B&N to have her cable replaced for her Nook Color and was sent a replacement that also failed, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiff claimed that when she contacted Barnes & Noble to have her replacement cable replaced, her request was denied because it fell outside of the warranty period.

Replacing the chargers with after-market chargers for the Nook has not been successful, according to the complaint. B&N has had inventory shortages for months for their replacement cables as well, preventing consumers from finding an adequate solution to the allegedly defective chargers, the claim asserted. The complaint stated that the wall-charging and car-charging cables both suffer from the defect.

Hainley maintained that B&N was well aware of the complaints about the chargers because the company received hundreds of complaints on the company’s websites and hundreds more have reported the issue on websites that sell Nook devices outside of Barnes & Noble itself. The Nook class action lawsuit claimed that despite its awareness, B&N “has not taken any steps to remedy the situation by updating the design, recalling the defective items, or compensating its customers who have purchased these items.”

In December, Barnes & Noble filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that Hainley did not properly plead her claims or demonstrated that the limitation provision on its express warranty is unconscionable.

Hainley’s motion in opposition to B&N’s dismissal stated, “Accordingly, while warranty limitations such as the ones at issue here are not by themselves procedurally unconscionable as a matter of law, under the circumstances of this case Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that she had not meaningful choice with respect to the limitations provision.”

In the motion to keep the Barnes & Noble lawsuit alive, Hainley summarized, “In short, B&N took advantage of its knowledge of the defect and plaintiff’s relative lack of sophistication in order to impose a warranty term that (1) plaintiff had no reason to expect, and (2) was unfair in light of the fact that B&N knew it was providing a flawed product.”

The plaintiff is represented by Jonathan Shub of Kohn Swift & Graf PC.

The Barnes & Noble Nook Charger Class Action Lawsuit is Hainley v. Barnes and Noble Inc., et al., Case No. 5:15-cv-05513, in the U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Eastern District.