A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the Cupertino tech giant over the batteries swelling in Apple Watch models. The tech giant is accused of falsely marketing its Apple Watch as a safe wearable device that has a defective design that causes physical injury when the display is detached from the body due to swelling batteries force. The class action includes Apple Watch Series 0 through Series 6 and Series SE, only Series 7 is excluded.
Apple accused of not providing enough space for the Apple Watch battery to swell
As per the filing, the placement or degradation of the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery is not the “defect” but the smartwatch’s design is. It is argued that the tech giant did not allocate space between the battery and the display so that when on expansion, the battery does not force open the glass display and destroy the device and cause harm to the user.
However, the Apple Watch contains an undisclosed and unreasonably dangerous safety hazard: a small wearable device intended to rest on a user’s wrist with no thermal or other solution to prevent and/or mitigate the danger of a detached, shattered, or cracked Watch screen resulting from the insufficient space allocated within the device for the rectangular shaped, electromagnetically charged lithium cobalt oxide battery inside a polymer pouch (the “Defect”).
Knowing the battery inside the Watch can suddenly swell, Apple allocated insufficient room inside the Watch for it to freely expand without affecting the Watch screen face and/or failed to incorporate a protective guard to keep it from making contact with the Watch screen face, and/or otherwise failed to prevent detachment, shattering, or cracking of the Watch screen face as described above. The swelling creates considerable upward pressure on the Watch face, causing detachment, shattering, and/or cracking of the screen through no fault of the wearer, exposing its razor-sharp edges and leading to operational failure of the Watch and/or personal injuries resulting from unintended bodily contact with the detached, shattered, or cracked screen.
To substantiate the allegation, the filing describes that plaintiff Chris Smith suffered an injury from the shattered display glass of his Apple Watch Series 3 after it was forced open due to battery swelling. Claiming that Apple knowingly sold defected millions of smartwatches to unsuspecting customers, the case is seeking general, special, incidental, statutory, punitive, and consequential damages, and costs for replacing their Apple Watches. It is also demanded that the company publically discloses the defect and pay attorneys fees. Click here to read the complete filing.
