More iPhone owners sue Apple over slow-down function

Lawsuits emerge days after Apple admitted to slowing older models

CUPERTINO >> Apple is facing another lawsuit — this time in a Bay Area federal court — over its admission this week that it slowed down older iPhones.

On Thursday, a New York-based man filed a lawsuit against the Cupertino tech giant — a day after Apple acknowledged that it had created a software feature to slow down older iPhone models, to prevent unexpected battery-related shutdowns. The lawsuit was filed in the federal Northern District Court in San Francisco.

The plaintiff, Keaton Harvey, previously lived in the Bay Area and filed with the San Ramon-based law firm Fazio Micheletti.

Harvey’s suit joins two similar lawsuits against Apple, following its Wednesday statement about the slowdown feature for older phones. Two law students in Los Angeles jointly filed suit as well, and five others from four states spanning from Illinois to North Carolina sued Apple in a federal court in Chicago.

All three lawsuits argue largely the same point, alleging that Apple concealed information about the owners’ iPhones as their performance declined, and when approached to investigate, Apple encouraged owners to upgrade to a newer model.

Harvey, for instance, saw his iPhone 6 shut down unexpectedly and become extremely sluggish, and ultimately replaced it with a newer phone for more than $1,000, according to the complaint. While Apple did have a free battery replacement program in November 2016, it was limited only for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

“Plaintiff is informed and believes that Apple was aware of a defect in his affected iPhone at the time he purchased a new one, and not only failed to disclose what it knew, but made deliberately misleading statements that were intended to conceal the nature and scope of that defect,” reads the complaint.

Harvey has sued Apple for alleged fraudulent concealment and alleged violations of the Consumers Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law.

“Our case is simple,” said Jeffrey Fazio, one of Harvey’s lawyers. “The crux of the case is Apple knew there was a problem and that they chose a software solution for a hardware problem to prevent a recall. It was a no-lose situation for Apple.”