You said that "It is against U.S. law to void a warranty."
That is just complete and utter rubbish. So if I drop my phone in America, crack the screen and therefore void the warranty, I'm doing something illegal?
Dropping your phone and cracking the screen does not void the warranty. If you crack the screen on a laptop and the hard drive later fails due to a manufacturer defect they still have to replace the hard drive.
If they tell you "sorry you cracked your screen your warranty is void we cannot replace your hard drive", you are allowed under the law to recover any reasonable expenses getting the issue resolved including lost wages and transportation in reminding them that they have to replace your hard drive even if your screen is cracked.
There is no legal way to void a warranty in the US, you would literally have to destroy every single component of a device before it cannot be warrantied and even then the warranty wouldn't be void, there would just not be anything left to warranty.
Warranty doucement: Lucille Carter is right. Other poster who said it was against the law is dead wrong.
"Important: Do not open the Covered iPhone. Opening the Covered iPhone may cause damage that is not covered by this Plan. Only Apple or an authorized service provider should perform service on the Covered iPhone."
Right... because the actual wording of the law, multiple court cases and multiple federal trade commission advisories must be "dead wrong".
You don't seem to clearly understand what that paragraph is saying.
"
May cause damage that is not covered by this plan."
Read that a few times. Notice those words? "may cause damage that". It's funny how they didn't use a different wording. Like "will void your warranty". In fact the wording can be broken down to "A may result in B that causes C", C being denied warranty coverage. They do not say that A opening your phone, causes C, denied warranty coverage. They said that A, opening your phone may cause, B damage as a result of opening your phone, which causes C voiding your warranty. If you think that A causes C, ie opening your phone results in denied warranty coverage, you are doing what's called an association fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
Using that logic though - every time an iPhone is opened is must become damaged. But if that's the case how can ANYBODY ever work on an iPhone if every single time it's opened it breaks? Why aren't iPhones just thrown out every time they have to be opened?
The truth is that wording is very specifically chosen by Apple. Allow me to translate to make things clearer:
"Important: It's Apple's advice that you shouldn't try to open a covered iPhone. Because if you are stupid enough, you might break something, which will count as "abuse" under federal warranty law, and federal law allows us to deny your coverage if you are stupid enough to break your own phone while opening it. It is Apple's advice that if you want repairs or maintenance done on your phone, you should use a trained technician at all times to avoid stupid mistakes"