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Jersey case adds to toll of iPhone speed lawsuits

updated 03:25 pm EDT, Fri March 20, 2009

NJ iPhone speed lawsuit


Apple and AT&T are the subjects of another lawsuit involving speeds on the iPhone 3G, reports say. A case on behalf of Damone Dickerson has been filed in the US District Court for New Jersey, accusing Apple of misrepresenting the speed and quality possible with AT&T's networking and the iPhone. In practice, Dickerson's documents claim, 3G access has only been available to him for a fraction of the time, and is neither full nor continuous; in many cases 3G is not even an option, the filings read.

Specific complaints in the suit include negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of contract, breach of express warranty, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied warranty of merchantability and a violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. Dickerson is requesting compensatory, statutory and punitive damages, as well as a change in Apple and AT&T's marketing.

Apple has been hit with numerous such lawsuits in the past, in states such as Alabama, California, Florida, Texas and New York. Though none have been resolved, some reports have suggested that poor 3G performance is attributable to oversaturation linked to the inherent nature of the technology. Others have proposed that the iPhone is too aggressive in demanding bandwidth.


by MacNN Staff

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TAGS :

 iPhone, AT&T, lawsuits, iPhone 3G, Apple, New Jersey

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Comments

  1. vasic

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: May 2005

    +1
    03/20, 04:19pm | report spam | Reply |

    The old rule

    Let's not forget; most often, win or lose, lawyers get rich in the process.

    I highly doubt any lawyer would take a case like this pro bono, or for a percentage of the settlement/verdict. The odds are just too long for them to invest their own time into this.

  1. Zaren

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    03/20, 04:30pm | report spam | (3 replies) Reply |

    Why Apple?

    Not to sound like an Apple apologist here, but why sue Apple for AT&T's crappy service? It's not up to Apple to ensure that AT&T has their network c*** together; Apple built a device meant to use a service, and they advertise it as such. If the service doesn't work right, it's not Apple's fault.

  1. cmoney

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Sep 2000

    +1
    03/20, 04:40pm | report spam | Reply |

    Re: Why Apple

    Probably simply because they're the ones who make the claims about the iPhone's performance. AT&T make no such claims therefore can't be held responsible, although everyone in their right mind knows it to be the case.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -3
    03/20, 06:06pm | report spam | Reply |

    blame

    The reason Apple is sued is as has been stated: Apple does all the marketing of the iPhone. Apple stated that the iPhone 3G was twice as fast. Apple did NOT state "Subject to 3G performance in your area".


    If I use a Samsung phone on the Verizon network and my call quality suffers and my calls get dropped, do you think I'd blame Samsung, or Verizon?


    I have no idea who you blame. I'd blame Samsung if they told me "On Verizon, your phone will never drop a call!" I'd blame verizon if they told me the same thing.

    But blaming someone and suing them are two different things. You could try to sue Samsung and/or Verizon, but you're not going to get far. Because you probably have no proof of Samsung saying how much faster your phone is, and nothing from Verizon saying "Dropped calls are a thing of the past!"

    So maybe Apple should learn how to temper their enthusiam in their ads, and this wouldn't be happening.

    (Oh, who are we kidding, everyone loves to sue Apple, they'd just find another reason to do so).

  1. eldarkus

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Feb 2004

    -1
    03/20, 08:43pm | report spam | Reply |

    @Zaren

    There are a few reasons you sue Apple.

    One being that they advertised the the speeds. Apple doesnt have much to do with ATT, but if they advertise 3G speeds and dont deliver, they could possibly be at fault.

    But the more important reason being that Apple has oodles of money. A good rule of thumb is to not sue poor companies :)

  1. slider

    Mac Elite

    Joined: Oct 1999

    0
    03/20, 11:17pm | report spam | Reply |

    New Web Site?

    Lawsuits are public, who sued who. I think someone should start a website to track these people and see just how many times the same names come up. The site should include settlements, scams, insurance payouts, basically any publicly available information involving large sums of money being awarded to someone for doing, well, relatively nothing.

    I firmly believe there is a subset of Americans that regularly try to get something for nothing. Lets call them out.

    The problem with making it hard for suing a person or company is that in some cases the only recourse a person has against a large company is to sue them. Things like losing an arm because due to a bad design or getting cancer b/c the company knowing use a chemical in a product or didn't do the what they should have done to make sure a cancer agent wasn't in the product. But for crying out load, bad reception, scratches on your iPod, non user replaceable battery. Seriously, don't buy the product. You all of a sudden have the resources and time to sue a company but you couldn't do a little online research to discover the problems with the product? An Apple product is announced on day, and then the next day there's a dozen reviews about the thing and the forums are full of complaints. I give you the new iPod Shuffle for example.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -4
    03/20, 11:53pm | report spam | (1 reply) Reply |

    Re: new web site

    I think someone should start a website to track these people and see just how many times the same names come up.

    There's 300 miliion people in the US. You really think going through these lawsuits is going to find the same names over and over? Any good lawyer on a defendant's side would dig this up in no time. And only a bad defense lawyer would not figure this out and make sure they used someone else each time to 'front' the suit.

    But for crying out load, bad reception, scratches on your iPod, non user replaceable battery.

    The battery is ridiculous. But an easily scratched iPod is signs of a defective product (esp. for a product advertised as being something you can put in your pocket). And bad reception is bad reception, which wouldn't be a problem except for saying "we've got great reception!" in advertisements.

    Unless you think there should be no limits to what people can say in ads. Or that products with minor defects shouldn't be considered defective.

  1. dimmer

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Feb 2006

    +1
    03/21, 01:19pm | report spam | Reply |

    From

    From Apple's site:

    "Throughput depends on the cellular network, location, signal strength, 3G/EDGE connectivity, feature configuration, usage, the Internet, and many other factors."

    Which seems pretty comprehensive.

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