A class action lawsuit has been filed against Apple claiming that every generation of the Apple Watch has had a battery swelling defect that can cause operational failures and personal injuries from broken screens.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs claim Apple manufactures the watch in a way that allows the lithium cobalt oxide battery in the wearable to contact the watch screen. When the battery swells it can cause the display to pop up.
Where the display is damaged by the battery, “razor-sharp edges” are exposed, which can lead to injury.
Despite knowing the battery can suddenly swell, the Complaint alleges that Apple allocated insufficient room inside the Apple Watch for it to freely expand without affecting the screen face and/or failed to incorporate a protective guard to keep it from contacting the screen face.
The swelling creates considerable upward pressure on the Apple Watch face, allegedly causing detachment, shattering, and/or cracking of the screen through no fault of the wearer. When this happens, it exposes razor-sharp edges and leads to operational failure and/or injuries resulting from unintended bodily contact with the detached, shattered, or cracked screen.
The suit claims that the defect poses a “material and unreasonable safety hazard to consumers, and has caused “many purchasers” to suffer from “lacerations, cuts, abrasions, and/or other injuries.”
The suit includes the description of when a man who had owned an Apple Watch Series 3 for three years and saw the watch screen detach due to battery swelling. He was driving a golf cart and reached down from the steering wheel, when the detached screen “severely sliced” the underside of his forearm, cutting a vein. The lawsuit provides images of a deep cut along the man’s arm.
All Apple Watch models excepting the Apple Watch Series 7 are included in the lawsuit, and it covers Apple Watches of every size and model.
The lawsuit claims that Apple was aware that its Apple Watches were defective before it released them, and that the company also failed to inform buyers of this defect that could harm the wearer.
Apple uniformly failed to disclose that the Watches contained the Defect that would cause them to fail and render them an unreasonable safety hazard resulting in injury to the wearer. This makes the Watches unmerchantable and unfit for the uses Apple advertised, e.g., activity oriented, fitness, athletic use, health, and safety.
Plaintiffs in the case are seeking general, special, incidental, statutory, punitive, and consequential damages, as well as the costs for replacing their Apple Watches. The suit also asks that Apple “adequately disclose the defective nature of the Watch” and that Apple pay attorneys fees and costs.
(Via MacRumors)
