Defective iMac Screen Class Action Lawsuit Dismissed

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A class action lawsuit accusing Apple Inc. of falsely marketing its iMac desktop computers as having “superior quality” and “longer lifespans than other brands” was dismissed Friday after a California federal judge found the advertising claims to be “mere puffery” and not a legitimate basis for a false advertising class action lawsuit.

The plaintiff will be allowed to address the judge’s concerns by filing an amended class action lawsuit within 30 days.

Lead plaintiff Corbin Rasmussen argued in the Apple iMac class action lawsuit, filed in October 2013, that the 27-inch iMac he purchased in 2009 suffered from a defect in it’s LG LED-backlit display that caused the screen to permanently dim. Rasmussen claimed Apple knew about the iMac screen defect, but misrepresented the iMac to it’s customers as having a “long, productive life” and high quality screen, forcing customers to pay substantial sums to repair the defect when it manifested outside of the warranty period. Apple filed a motion to dismiss the claims.

On March 14, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of California agreed with Apple and dismissed Rasmussen’s claims related to iMac failures outside of the warranty period, saying Apple “is not liable for a fraudulent omission concerning a latent defect…unless the omission is ‘contrary to a representation actually made by the defendant, or an omission of a fact the defendant was obliged to disclose.'”

The judge continued, “where a plaintiff predicates his…claim on a manufacturer’s failure to inform a customer of a latent defect which creates a likelihood of the product failing outside the warranty period, the Ninth Circuit has narrowly construed the circumstances in which such omission will be deemed ‘material’…‘[a] manufacturer’s duty to consumers is limited to its warranty obligations absent either an affirmative misrepresentation or a safety issue.’” The judge agreed with Apple on this point, stating “courts continue to require plaintiffs to show that the defect that the manufacturer allegedly failed to disclose implicated safety concerns in order to state a…claim.”

Judge Chen also dismissed Rasmussen’s claims related to iMac failures within the warranty period, pointing out that “advertising which ‘merely states in general terms that one product is superior is not actionable,” but “misdescriptions of specific or absolute characteristics of a product are actionable.'” The judge found “it is apparent that the relevant alleged representations contained in the complaint constitute inactionable puffery,” the judge said, ‘[f]irst, many statements do not relate to the longevity of the screen’s performance, only to the general quality of its display…[a]s to those that do, statements that the Mac is designed to ‘last’ or to have a “long productive life” are equivalent to representations that a product was ‘built to last’ that courts have found to be non-actionable.”

The judge also pointed out, “[s]imilarly, representations [in the class action lawsuit] that the screen was a ‘very premium class,’ that macs are ‘precisely built,’ and that the machines use only ‘quality components and materials’ are indistinguishable from those cases which have held that representations that a product was ‘superb, uncompromising quality,’ ‘outstanding quality,’ or ‘high quality,’ constituted puffery.”

Judge Chen gave the plaintiff leave to amend his complaint.

Corbin Rasmussen is represented by Eric H. Gibbs, Dylan Hughes, Scott M. Grzenczyk and Caitlyn D. Finley of Girard Gibbs LLP.

The Defective iMac Screen Class Action Lawsuit is Rasmussen, et al. v. Apple Inc., Case No. 3:13-cv-04923, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.