Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Storage Class Action Lawsuit Dismissed

An Apple class action lawsuit involving claims that the tech company falsely advertises the storage capacity of its iPods, iPads, and iPhones has been dismissed by a California federal judge.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Davila dismissed the Apple class action after finding that the consumers failed to meet the evidence threshold for explaining how they were misled.

“The [amended complaint] includes verbatim the allegations the court previously found were insufficient to state a plausible claim of fraud under any of the consumer protection statutes,” Judge Davila stated. “This court already explained that these allegations do not allow Apple to pinpoint which of its representations … gave rise to the alleged mistaken expectations which underlie plaintiffs’ theory of deception.”

The consumers who filed the Apple iPhone storage class action argued that the various devices sold by Apple were promoted as being sold with eight or 16 gigabytes of storage, which was inaccurate since the operating system installed by Apple took up three gigabytes itself.

The original Apple storage class action lawsuit was filed in January 2015, but many of the claims were dismissed in March 2018. The judge gave the consumers the chance to amend a complaint related to Apple’s alleged deception about the amount of space taken up by the operating system.

However, Judge Davila said that it was unreasonable for consumers to be under the impression that the operating system took up no space at all.

The consumers in the Apple storage class action lawsuit argued that there were applications on their devices taking up space that could not be removed, but the judge determined this was not enough to allow the case to continue.

Judge Davila says that the amended Apple iPad storage class action failed to explain how much storage space the consumers expected to come with the device after the operating system was installed or how Apple created an expectation that it would be any different.

Other complaints in that same lawsuit related to the Apple Watch application, but the judge says that consumers did not share in their amended complaint how the inability to delete such applications impacted their expectations of storage capacity.

The consumers also called Apple’s concept of “formatted capacity” into question. Within the amended Apple storage class action lawsuit, consumers say that the definition of format doesn’t incorporate installed applications or the operating system.

The judge, however, says that the plaintiffs’ use of format was not consistent throughout their arguments.

“Regardless of the dictionary definition of ‘format,’ no reasonable consumer could have read Apple’s disclaimer and expected that all of the 16 GB would be available for personal use on their devices, because the average consumer would know and expect that their Apple devices come [installed] with an operating system and applications,” Judge Davila wrote.

The judge stated that no reasonable consumer would come to the conclusion that all 16 gigabytes would be available as storage.

The judge dismissed the case without the option for the consumers to further amend their Apple class action lawsuit.

The consumers are represented by Michael McShane and S. Clinton Woods of Audet & Partners LLP, William H. Anderson of Handly & Anderson PLLC, Jon M. Herskowitz of Baron & Herskowitz, Charles J. Laduca of Cuneo Gilbert & Luduca LLP, and Amy Boyle of Halunen Law.

The Apple iPod, iPad, iPhone Storage Class Action Lawsuit is Orshan, et al. v. Apple Inc., Case No. 5:14-cv-05659, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.