J. Patrick Sutton Cases & Issues Blog

Apple MagSafe Class Action

Sutton Kleinman represents the named plaintiffs in a proposed nationwide class action against Apple, Inc., filed in California federal court, relating to expensive laptop power adapters that catch fire, spark, or otherwise go kaput. Millions of consumers are at risk.
Suppose you purchased a $900.00 laptop whose wall-wart power supply failed just beyond the one-year warranty period. No big deal, right? So you go to the manufacturer’s own store to pick up a new one, thinking it will be $20.00 or so. You find that it’s $80.00, which is pretty shocking, so you ask the store to replace it. They refuse, since you’re out of the warranty period. Fuming, you leave, go home, and start poking around on the web, and you discover that many people are having the same problem. The power supplies catch fire, spark, or simply fail, and from all indications it’s a basic design or manufacturing flaw. Then you find that the manufacturer has a program to replace the power supplies even when you’re out of the warranty period -- why didn’t they mention it at the store? So you march back to the store with the new information and demand a replacement. Again, the manufacturer refuses. You point out the language of the warranty, which states that the manufacturer will replace your power supply “whether in or out of warranty.” The store manager says: “Yes, that’s what it says, and that’s what everything thinks it means, but that’s not what it means.” Innocently, you ask, well, what does it mean? “I don’t know,” the manager says. “But it doesn’t mean what you just said.”
This is the Apple MagSafe class action in a nutshell. Sutton Kleinman’s clients are the named plaintiffs in a proposed nationwide class action seeking to force Apple, Inc. to provide a suitable remedy for a power adapter that, despite the promising name of “MagSafe,” should never have been brought to market. Sometimes, Apple does replace the power adapter for free out of warranty -- with the same, failure-prone adapter!
J. Patrick Sutton Cases & Issues Blog