Class Action Challenges Apple’s Alleged Permanent Deletion of User’s Apple ID [DISMISSED]
Last Updated on May 8, 2023
Price v. Apple, Inc.
Filed: April 20, 2021 ◆§ 5:21-cv-02846
Apple faces a class action over an allegedly “unlawful, unconscionable” clause in its terms and conditions that supposedly allows it to delete a user's Apple ID.
California
Case Updates
May 8, 2023 – Class Action Over Termination of Apple IDs Dismissed
A federal judge has ruled in favor of Apple in the proposed class action lawsuit detailed on this page and summarily dismissed the case on March 28, 2023.
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After United States District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. threw out an amended complaint in early April 2022, the plaintiff submitted a second amended complaint later that month, which Apple then moved to dismiss in May of that year.
The judge granted Apple’s motion in a nine-page order that dismissed each of the plaintiff’s claims as inadequate. According to the order, the plaintiff’s breach-of-contract claims failed because Apple’s Terms and Conditions—which the man agreed to—plainly state that a user’s Apple ID may be terminated if the company “suspects” any “fraudulent or manipulative activity.”
The judge stated that it was “immaterial whether Plaintiff’s multiple chargebacks were actually fraudulent or manipulative because … Apple suspected that they were.”
Further, though the plaintiff argued that Apple violated its Termination and Suspension of Services policy by withholding his unused funds, Judge Gilliam countered that this provision “does not say anything about returning unused funds to users whose accounts are terminated.”
In the order, the judge also threw out the plaintiff’s claim that Apple’s limitation of liability provision was void, saying that the consumer had not sufficiently explained why it would be unenforceable in this case.
According to the judge, the plaintiff had “ample opportunity to state a claim for relief” and continuously failed to do so. In light of the foregoing, Judge Gilliam dismissed the case without granting the plaintiff another chance to amend his claims.
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April 12, 2022 – Lawsuit Dismissed with Leave to Amend
The lawsuit detailed on this page was dismissed after a federal judge found that the plaintiff agreed to Apple’s terms and failed to show that they were overly harsh or oppressive.
In an April 6 order granting Apple’s motion to dismiss the case, U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. held that the plaintiff had not alleged facts showing that Apple’s terms—which allow the company to delete a user’s Apple ID if they violate or are suspected of violating the terms—are “substantively unconscionable.” According to the judge, the plaintiff’s reasoning that Apple’s contract permits the company to deny its customers access to their Apple ID content “without any relationship to Apple’s incurred damages” does not suggest that the terms are “overly harsh or so one-sided as to shock the conscience.”
Judge Gilliam also threw out the plaintiff’s California Unfair Competition Law claims, finding that he failed to show that Apple’s conduct was either unlawful, unfair or fraudulent.
Moreover, the plaintiff’s conversion claim also fails because he consented to Apple’s terms, which allow the company to terminate a user’s Apple ID account for an actual or suspected breach.
“In other words, Plaintiff knew that he would lose access to his purchased apps and services if Apple determined (or even suspected) that he failed to comply with the Apple Terms,” the judge wrote. “This forecloses his conversion claim.”
Similarly, the plaintiff’s trespass claim—which alleges “unauthorized entry”—cannot stand because Apple did not act without the plaintiff’s authorization, the judge found.
Judge Gilliam gave the plaintiff 21 days to amend his complaint with respect to some of his claims but noted that the court has “significant doubts” as to whether the plaintiff can sufficiently do so.
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Apple faces a proposed class action lawsuit over what a Pennsylvania man calls an “unlawful, unconscionable” clause in the company’s Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions that purportedly permits the tech giant to unilaterally and without explanation permanently delete a customer’s Apple ID, thereby eliminating access to already purchased content and services.
The plaintiff behind the 41-page lawsuit claims to have spent since January 2015 upward of $24,000 on services and content, including apps, in-app purchases, programs and platform extensions, via his Apple ID for use on his iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. According to the lawsuit, Apple determined in late October 2020 that the plaintiff breached its terms and conditions and, “without notice, explanation, policy or process,” terminated the man’s Apple ID, depriving him of access to paid-for services and content and the $7.63 balance of unspent funds in his Apple account.
“Without an operable Apple ID, not only can one not access the Content they have already purchased but the functionality of any related Apple Devices is vastly diminished,” the suit states. “As such, Apple is correct that its customers’ Apple ID accounts are valuable.”
As the case tells it, Apple has the authority to delete a user’s Apple ID based on the mere suspicion that they’ve breached the company’s terms and conditions. The suit argues Apple’s “unlawful and unconscionable” account termination and suspension clause “acts as a de facto liquidated damages provision” that’s triggered when the defendant suspects a breach has occurred.
The lawsuit alleges Apple has “collected significant revenues from terminating Plaintiff’s and the Class’s Apple IDs,” which consumers need in order to obtain content and iCloud storage, make in-app purchases, or even download free apps from the defendant. The complaint argues that “[i]f and to the extent that Apple suffers, would suffer, or has suffered any damage” from a breach of its terms and services by proposed class members, it is “neither impracticable nor extremely difficult to determine the actual damages.”
Moreover, the suit says the values of proposed class members’ Apple IDs “are not a reasonable measure or approximation of such damages and do not provide fair average compensation therefore.”
“Depriving Plaintiff and the Class of the value of their Apple IDs, under the circumstances existing at the time when Plaintiff and the Class agreed to the Terms and Conditions, was unreasonable,” the lawsuit asserts.
The suit claims Apple does not conduct a “reasonable endeavor” to fix fair average compensation for losses, “if any,” that it incurs, would incur or has incurred by virtue of any breach of its terms and conditions. Apple’s alleged termination of the plaintiff’s and proposed class members’ Apple IDs is “unconscionable, void, and unenforceable” by law and amounts to violations of California consumer protection statutes, the case alleges.
Covered by the lawsuit is a proposed class that includes all persons in the United States who own an Apple device and/or had an Apple ID and had their account terminated pursuant to the Termination and Suspension of Services provision in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions.
Also proposed in the lawsuit is coverage of a “subclass” of persons in the United States who fit the same criteria and whose Apple account carried a positive balance at the time Apple terminated the account.
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