California Judge Dismisses Notebook Logic Board Lawsuit Against Apple

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U.S. District Judge William Alsup this week dismissed a lawsuit filed against Apple over allegedly defective Apple notebooks, reports Reuters. Filed on behalf of Uriel Marcus and Benedict Verceles with class action status, the suit accused Apple of deliberately selling notebooks with logic boards the company knew were faulty.

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The plaintiffs claim Apple in May 2010 stated selling defective MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air notebooks with logic boards that failed within two years. Apple was accused of misrepresenting the faulty notebooks by advertising them as "state of the art" and the "most advanced" notebooks on the market. According to the suit, Tim Cook allegedly was made aware of the logic board issue in 2011 but did nothing to remedy the issue.

In his dismissal of the suit, Alsup said the plaintiffs failed to show that Apple's notebooks were of a substandard quality, noting that both plaintiffs were able to use their computers for a reasonable amount of time. Alsup also refuted the plaintiffs' claim that Apple misrepresented its products. Following this dismissal, the plaintiffs have until January 22 to amend their lawsuit.

Apple is facing another MacBook-related lawsuit that accuses the company of selling MacBook Pro models with defective graphics cards. This second suit is the result of a growing number of consumer complaints citing screen glitches, GPU failures, and system crashes in Apple's 2011 line of MacBook Pro notebooks.

Article Link: California Judge Dismisses Notebook Logic Board Lawsuit Against Apple

It ain't over till the fat lady sings..

The lawsuit was based on false representation (false advertising) while Apple
knew of a defect. (has nothing to do with warranties) - the judgement it seems reflects the plaintiffs inadequate arguments that would warrant a lawsuit - as in *what proof do you have of a defect?* (evidence). Statistics of "how many died, and within what time period" is not substantial proof" of claimed defects and does not a case make.

The case was dismissed without prejudice, and the judge gave the plaintiffs an open door to amend and re-submitt their case within a set time period - (so that the plaintiffs/lawyers have a chance to actually do their homework) to present substantial and seemingly conclusive evidence such as, proof of the defect in the chips/motherboard etc. backed by forensic evidence and testimony.

 

[JoeG4]

High end cars (to use the overused car comparison/analogy) don't typically come with longer warranties than lower end automakers. Ferrari comes with a 3 year warranty (although there are 12 year ones available now for purchase), Bentleys come with a 3 year (but unlimited miles) warranty (not sure who would want to put that many miles on a Bentley), Hondas are 3 years/36000 miles, etc.

Ferrari never claimed that their cars would last longer than say, a Ford. Then again, I suppose Apple never said their computers would outlast a Toshiba from Wal-Mart.

So there's that.

 

[Matariel]

For the iMac, the out of warranty cost was $1,000.

Why weren't you covered under the iMac 2011 Quality Program?

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203787

 

[mubeenshahid]

My 6 old acer is still running strong no quality or reliability issue while macs are getting unreliable over the years
Whats now the benefit of spending ridiculous amount of money on apple products

 

[nononsensenige]

I'm puzzled - the logic board in my Early 2011 MBP failed recently but was replaced, free of charge, by Apple.

The technicians (Stormfront, Exeter) told me that Apple extends a FIVE warranty for this part.

I, for one, am thrilled.

 

[OS X Dude]

I feel very lucky. My 2011 MBP has a dead AirPort card but, thanks to EU Consumer Law in England, it's covered for six years from the date of purchase. Didn't pay a penny for my replacement card. Had it been anything else, even a logic board fault, it would still have been covered. I should add that my Mac is in pristine condition, which always helps EU Coverage case reviews.

I also work in an AASP, but we don't get free repairs/parts. Nor do we get preferential treatment from Apple (quite the reverse!).

 

[ThunderSkunk]

We've replaced logic boards in about half our MBPs and all but 1 of our iMacs in our office over the years.

This is why I factor the cost of the 3 year AppleCare+ plan into every purchase, and sell them off after 2 years before it runs out. ...and the person buying it still gets a 1 year warranty so we're not screwing someone else either.

I can't afford the time it takes to fiddle around with broken equipment, and buying AppleCare+ is a lot cheaper than losing productivity, getting stuck with broken gear, and lawyering up to sue Apple. Ideally, every Mac would just come with it, but then they'd just tack its cost on to the price, and there wouldn't really be a difference... I guess I look at it more as, buying a Mac without AppleCare+ is just cheaping out by taling a discount by opting out of your warranty. Risky.

 

[cjmillsnun]

I ran the Apple Hardware Test in extended testing mode on it, and it found no issues. Would Apple do anything differently if I took it in? We'll probably take it in anyway and see if they can do anything.

Yes. Apple Service Diagnostics are far less fault tolerant than AHT.

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I'm puzzled - the logic board in my Early 2011 MBP failed recently but was replaced, free of charge, by Apple.

The technicians (Stormfront, Exeter) told me that Apple extends a FIVE warranty for this part.

I, for one, am thrilled.

It is actually 6 years as you're in the UK and are covered by the Sale of Goods Act.

 

[charlituna]

Considering the average computer has a life span of 5 years, and the average Mac is nearly double that, the 18 month statement is highly ignorant.

US consumer law begs to differ and that is what the judge must address. Morally or ethically etc doesn't matter, legal does.

And that a device worked without apparent issue for 18 months means the issue wasn't present at sale under the logic of said laws.

Also these folks failed to prove that all their anedotal evidence was from the same cause. And one of the representing parties admitted that his logic board was replaced under warranty by Apple Care. kind of destroyed his claim of wrong doing when he was out nothing after a failure several months after purchase. and he couldn't prove that the machine was knowingly faulty when he bought it.

 

[lowendlinux]

I find it hard to believe that serious professionals are using a computer for 5-10 years. 10 years ago computers were so slow that modern software wouldn't even run on them. Even 3 years ago laptops were hot to the touch, had 2 hours of battery life, and an obnoxiously loud fan. Not to mention the rotating disk, which was easily 20 times slower than today's SSD.

That depends entire on the profession and SW being used.

 

[mtfbwy]

Mine failed last week

Second time mine failed and Apple made me pay the $310 fee to have it repaired. First one was two years into ownership. It was only 6 months out of warranty. I was actually pretty stunned by the phone call I got from the representative on the executive team and the "Genius" insinuated I should consider just buying a new one.

I'm a long-time Mac user but will probably switch to Windows. I'm not interested in a 3 year continuous upgrade cycle for such an expensive computer.

 

[manu chao]

And that a device worked without apparent issue for 18 months means the issue wasn't present at sale under the logic of said laws.

Also these folks failed to prove that all their anedotal evidence was from the same cause.

If, eg, 50% of all 2011 MBPs had failed after 18 months, then something was wrong (faulty parts, bad design) in that the sold product carried a common enough flaw. If, eg, 1% failed had after 18 months (which might be the case for this particular issue, 1% of all MBPs sold in a year is a very large number), then this could just mean that the failure rate was a bit higher. If the average life of a product falls from eight to seven years, this is not legally or even morally a fault of the manufacturer, it's just puts the product into a slightly different 'overall quality' category.

Now, for these failed 2011 MBPs, if they almost all came from a narrow serial number range, then a bigger mistake was made somewhere. But if Apple received a batch of components with a higher failure rate, what standards should be used for putting the blame at Apple for not having noticed this?

The answer is twofold:
1) Is it reasonable to have expected from Apple to notice this defect before shipping? Eg, the reason was a batch of clearly bad RAM that Apple could have detected by proper checking each batch.

2) From what percentage of products affected and from what failure date can we say this was a bad design or improper testing of the complete unit?

In other words, was this unreasonable behaviour by Apple or was it just bad luck (that some percentage of those logic boards failed early)?

 

[DonutHands]

I do wish we had minimum warranty standards that are required by the government. For high price durable goods there should be some type of law in effect. 1 year on a potentially $1000-10000 computer is half of what it should at least be by default.

 

[philosopherdog]

Service makes up for sometimes unreliable hardware

There computers aren't always the most reliable. They depend on suppliers and parts aren't always reliable in a race to the bottom industry. However, I have on a number of occasions had serious repairs done free out of warranty. The whole Genius Bar experience mostly makes up for sometimes poor quality machines. The level of service is simply not part of any other computer purchasing experience.

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We've replaced logic boards in about half our MBPs and all but 1 of our iMacs in our office over the years.

This is why I factor the cost of the 3 year AppleCare+ plan into every purchase, and sell them off after 2 years before it runs out. ...and the person buying it still gets a 1 year warranty so we're not screwing someone else either.

I can't afford the time it takes to fiddle around with broken equipment, and buying AppleCare+ is a lot cheaper than losing productivity, getting stuck with broken gear, and lawyering up to sue Apple. Ideally, every Mac would just come with it, but then they'd just tack its cost on to the price, and there wouldn't really be a difference... I guess I look at it more as, buying a Mac without AppleCare+ is just cheaping out by taling a discount by opting out of your warranty. Risky.

Obviously Apple care makes money. I rarely buy it since if you do use the machine hard in the first year usually what breaks will break by then. Mostly Apple care is playing into fear as do most extended warranties. However if you are on the thing 12 hours a day making a living then it's probably worth giving into the fear.

 

[kingtj]

Unfortunately ....

I think this is really more of an industry-wide problem than an "Apple thing".

My work bought a number of new HP Elitebook laptops last year and we're already having issues like one that needed a new keyboard because the "delete" key just stopped working. (Hard to press ALT-CTRL-DEL to log in without that!) A couple of others had failing batteries in only a few months of use.

My wife's workplace has a bunch of Dell laptops where the hard drives in them are failing left and right, after the first year of use.

I agree that a failed logic board is one of the most serious failures you can have (hardest to fix when doing a repair, vs. just swapping a defective component like RAM or a drive) ... but I recall the same issue with a high end Toshiba laptop one of my buddies bought a few years back. This stuff happens across the whole industry, and has a number of factors.

(The video chips failing, including the famous "red ring of death" XBox 360 failures, were primarily due to the industry's switch to lead-free solder. Lead-free solder didn't hold up well to the heating/cooling cycles the video chips went through in normal use, and the BGA (ball grid array) method of soldering the bottoms of the chips to contact points on the boards developed cracks and failed.)

Second time mine failed and Apple made me pay the $310 fee to have it repaired. First one was two years into ownership. It was only 6 months out of warranty. I was actually pretty stunned by the phone call I got from the representative on the executive team and the "Genius" insinuated I should consider just buying a new one.

I'm a long-time Mac user but will probably switch to Windows. I'm not interested in a 3 year continuous upgrade cycle for such an expensive computer.

 

[bcburrows]

Had the issue with my MBP - thankfully in the UK if a product has an inherent fault we have up to six years to make a claim (not quite normal warranty conditions but close enough).... I went to apple armed with this knowledge, but to be fair to them, they said "I bet you came here thinking you would have to argue about the 6 years under the sale of goods act? Well you don't we will cover it", job done.....

 

[mubeenshahid]

I think this is really more of an industry-wide problem than an "Apple thing".

My work bought a number of new HP Elitebook laptops last year and we're already having issues like one that needed a new keyboard because the "delete" key just stopped working. (Hard to press ALT-CTRL-DEL to log in without that!) A couple of others had failing batteries in only a few months of use.

My wife's workplace has a bunch of Dell laptops where the hard drives in them are failing left and right, after the first year of use.

I agree that a failed logic board is one of the most serious failures you can have (hardest to fix when doing a repair, vs. just swapping a defective component like RAM or a drive) ... but I recall the same issue with a high end Toshiba laptop one of my buddies bought a few years back. This stuff happens across the whole industry, and has a number of factors.

(The video chips failing, including the famous "red ring of death" XBox 360 failures, were primarily due to the industry's switch to lead-free solder. Lead-free solder didn't hold up well to the heating/cooling cycles the video chips went through in normal use, and the BGA (ball grid array) method of soldering the bottoms of the chips to contact points on the boards developed cracks and failed.)

The point is Apple advertises its products having amazing quality and charges ridiculous amount of money for its products while other manufactures have their products reasonably priced.Then whats the benefits of spending more money on apple when they have same quality as other manufacturers

 

[lowendlinux]

The point is Apple advertises its products having amazing quality and charges ridiculous amount of money for its products while other manufactures have their products reasonably priced.Then whats the benefits of spending more money on apple when they have same quality as other manufacturers

Depends on which products you are comparing. I own a PC laptop and workstation that both cost more when new than the Macs they compete with.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This old thread. https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=11928737#post11928737

 

[theluggage]

My 6 old acer is still running strong no quality or reliability issue while macs are getting unreliable over the years
Whats now the benefit of spending ridiculous amount of money on apple products

The 2004 G4 Mac Mini that I use as a mail server is still running 24/7 (its been 415 days since the last reboot - and that was probably a power failure), but since then the number of Apple products still running after 10 years has fallen drastically. Its absolutely shocking - there are no 5K iMacs, Mac Pros or iPad Air 2s that have been working for more than a year or so.

At work, we use about 12 MacBook Pros and one Windows PC and the only machine that failed in the last year was a Mac. Disgusting!

However, my early 2011 MBP is still going, so the stories about those failing are obviously rubbish.

PS: My gran used 60 pieces of anecdotal evidence a day, and she lived to be 96.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

Watch this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3z9dXfs8F4

 

[mlody]

I am also upset that most electronics have only 1 year warranty, but how many people walk to Apple store with $2-3k in cash to buy something? Usually people put such purchases on credit cards which automatically extend the warranty to 2 years - at least most of major credit cards do. Perhaps, not a lot of people know about it, and it isn't as convenient as walking to a store a replacing a broken item, but it is a warranty nonetheless.

 

[theluggage]

I find it hard to believe that serious professionals are using a computer for 5-10 years. 10 years ago computers were so slow that modern software wouldn't even run on them.

5+ year old computer as the a working machine for high-end graphics or video work? No, probably not.

5+ year old computer as a useful bit of kit for basic productivity work, home server, hand-me-down potential or maybe with some resale value? Absolutely. I don't expect my previous computer to turn into a doorstop the day I buy a new one.

In the past, a computer more than 18 months old may have been landfill, but that is increasingly no longer the case. Since ~2004 when the megahertz wars died down and Intel dropped the Pentium 4 "space heater" architecture in favour of "Core", Hardware developments have been more focussed on power consumption and size than overall performance. That's probably one of the reasons why PC sales have slumped and the Unique Selling Point of new computers is that they're 1mm thinner.

Even 3 years ago laptops were hot to the touch, had 2 hours of battery life, and an obnoxiously loud fan. Not to mention the rotating disk, which was easily 20 times slower than today's SSD.

Tell that to my main machine: it is an early 2011 17" Macbook Pro. I replaced the HD with a SSD 2 years ago (that's the great thing about 4 year old computers). About the only thing it can't do is drive a 4K display. The battery life is decent (it spends most of its time plugged in anyway) - yeah it gets warm but my desk doesn't seem to mind and yeah the fan comes on when its busy (but I've used computers with obnoxiously loud fans in the past and this ain't one).

I've also got a 2004 G4 Mac Mini acting as an email/DNS/DHCP/SSH server on my home network and a 2006 Mac Pro stuffed full of hard drives for backups and media storage and still handy whenever I need a second computer.

 

[JAT]

It is not a guarantee, but it is an reasonable expectation that can affect brand image. My $600 HP laptop is 8 years old and still runs (albeit not greatly). Where as my almost 3 year old $1799 MacBook Pro failed twice to the point where it wouldn't even boot.

And my 21+yo Apple 165c laptop runs great, although the NiCd batteries are shot. Meanwhile, we went through 3 HP laptops in 4 years trying to find one that could last a year. Gave up after that and bought an iPad, which still works even after my wife fell on it. (just cuts you a bit if you aren't careful)

See how anecdotes are pointless?

 

[TRIFORCE666]

worst customer service experience ever

i live in europe, and the MBP i bought in 2011 (17 inch , early 2011, ca. $ 2500.-) directly from the apple store online, died after only 2-3 years of low stress & stationary use.
i told apple support that the 2011 models have a known issue (gpu failure over time), and they basically told me that i was **** out of luck, because i am not covered by warranty anymore, and i dont have applecare. nice. never again !