An appeals court in California has resurrected a 2022 lawsuit over claims Apple convinced them not to use a third-party repair service to fix cracked iPhone screens.
In the last few years, Apple has been more open to enabling repairs of its hardware performed outside of its support ecosystem. While its position has relaxed a lot, it still has to deal with its policies from prior years.
A filing for the Court of Appeal for the State of California in August reveals a panel has reversed an earlier court's ruling to quash a lawsuit over Apple's repair policies. The three-judge appeals Sixth Appellate District panel has brought the lawsuit back to life.
In 2022, plaintiffs Jesse Granato and Janice Zarad said they were told by an Apple employee in 2021 that using a third-party repair service would void their warranty coverage. The Courthouse News Service reports the plaintiffs claim this encouraged them to pay for a screen repair through Apple itself.
The lawsuit accused Apple of inflating the cost of independent repairs in various ways, including withholding parts, manuals, and software. It also allegedly conditioned warranties on using authorized repair shops.
A Santa Clara Superior Court judge agreed with Apple's response that the lawsuit lacked standing under the state's unfair competition law. Something the Court of Appeal overturned in 2026.
Repairing the lawsuit
In the unanimous decision, the judges explain that, as pleaded, Apple's practices at the time "substantially injure consumers by allowing Apple to extract inflated payments for repairs or to increase demand for new products by incentivizing replacement over repair."
The plaintiffs also couldn't identify any benefit to Apple's repair policies that outweighed the harm they caused, wrote acting presiding Associate Justice Cynthia Lie.
The panel decided that the plaintiffs had adequately pleaded under the unfair competition claim.
The plaintiffs also attempted to claim that Apple had violated the California 2024 Right to Repair Act, which Apple actually backed. However, the panel pointed out that the law was enacted after the initial suit was filed.
There was also an alleged violation of the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, by Apple allegedly refusing and instructing authorized repair shops to refuse in-warranty services, if repairs were performed elsewhere outside of any warranty.
However, while Lie explains the plaintiffs hadn't adequately managed to claim the violation of the law, it was ruled that the claims violated the spirit of the law.
The case, revived, has been remanded to a lower court.
