iPhone 4 Class Action Lawsuit Brewing?

Nicole Martinelli ()

iPhone 4 Class Action Lawsuit Brewing?

Did you say iLawsuit?

Hold the phone — and don’t bother holding it “correctly” — law firm Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is looking for  iPhone 4 owners for a possible class action lawsuit.

They are looking for people who “recently purchased the new iPhone and have experienced poor reception quality, dropped calls and weak signals.”

It’s a tough call for many cult of mac-ers: if you ordered ahead, waited in line and found the iPhone 4 drops reception faster than Britney Spear’s panties, you’re probably not happy about it. They’re banking that enough of the 1,700,000 iPhone 4s sold in just the first three days of the device’s release have enough unhappy owners to warrant a class-action suit.

They are not the only ones demanding Apple give customers some satisfaction: Gizmodo has stomped its sour grapes into a petition demanding the Cupertino company give up some free cases that may help fix the faulty phones.

Do you put faith in Steve Jobs’ claims that the slight snafu will be soon fixed or would you be willing to talk to the lawyers about it?

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Via Valleywag

24 comments »

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

If you're doing something new/cool that's Apple related, email her about it.

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Posted in iPhone 4, News |

  • Drew Caster

    Or you could just return it for one that works…

  • Scott

    Class actions only result in money for the lawyers – plaintiffs usually get a coupon for $5 from the offending companies

  • Phil

    Are you kidding me? This could be the dumbest story I’ve ever read. The thing can be returned. There is no law suit here.

    Not to mention that it really isn’t a big deal. The calls still hold in my experience.

  • Donny

    Hate lawyers. Get a life. I don’t need you bottom feeders to fight my battles.

  • Matt

    “Via Valleywag” says it all.

  • http://www.theiphonedoc.com lifedrivedoc

    Unbelievable! If you don’t like the phone, return it. Additionally, how many people walk around with a “naked” phone anyway? In my experience I have always purchased a cover for the phone. That would cancel the “grounding” feature noted with the present model. Additionally, isn’t this problem seen in other top notch devices too? ie. Google phones.

    If you get involved in this, you are likely to make about $7 when all is said and done.

  • Jeff_R

    Another example of the sue-happy lawyers in the States. It’d be a shame if this gains traction.

  • Rob

    Do not class action… you only line the silver tongue pockets of lawyers and give them reason to charge clients for simply receiving documents, let alone reading them which they again charge clients for… then when they start penning a response they charge for that as well!

  • Max_L

    We are all very lucky to have APPLE INC. in our lives. In the 90′s Apple almost didn’t survive. AI makes life better. Anyone greedy or impatient enough to pursue trying to injure AI needs to stop taking for granted all that AI has contributed to the world. Nothing is perfect, but APPLE is pretty close. We all collectively should be supporting Apple as often as possible, ESPECIALLY during times of difficulty. Shame on any and all who try to hurt APPLE.

  • Vopat

    I find the picture of a female African-American for this article odd. I very rarely see representations of non-whites portrayed positively on this site.

  • joss

    @Max_L

    “We are all very lucky to have APPLE INC. in our lives. In the 90’s Apple almost didn’t survive. AI makes life better. Anyone greedy or impatient enough to pursue trying to injure AI needs to stop taking for granted all that AI has contributed to the world. Nothing is perfect, but APPLE is pretty close. We all collectively should be supporting Apple as often as possible, ESPECIALLY during times of difficulty. Shame on any and all who try to hurt APPLE.”

    Oh god, can you be any more brainwashed???

  • Till

    Americans and their lawsuits. It’s a (ridiculous) story as old as time.

    Best regards from Germany

  • wfraser

    iPhone 4 drops reception faster than it drops Britney Spear’s panties? Talk about multitasking… Or is there an app for that?

  • Elmer Fudd

    @Vopat, you’re in idiot.

  • Fen Tiger

    Why is it the first thing Americans do is to resort to lawyers? Mind you this is the country where McDonalds were sued for making people fat. STOP IT, you’re giving us Brits bad habits.

  • Cody

    I might could understand this if someones hand got chopped off bc of the bad reception, but it didn’t. This is stupid. You got thirty days to return the sucker.

  • iSimon

    It’s companies like this that stop inovation…

    If these wankers sue everyone that tries to inovate and release new tech, then everyone will be scared to be creative and only we (as consumers) lose..

    if you don’t like the iphone take it back….but don’t stop companies like Apple from trying to be inovative.

  • Rob

    If it does not work, or you think it is faulty… take it back… don’t waste time crying to the lawyer whom is simply after 300 dollars an hour from suckers like you [plaintiffs]
    Get a life and stop trying to make an income from being a litigant and get on with innovation!

  • TheBrew

    @Vopat, the first thing I thought when I saw that picture was “Good looking female business woman with a fake smile from that FaceTime video”. Most things are in the eye of the beholder.

  • http://www.allyourapple.com Joshua

    Don’t get me wrong- this IS kind of irritating what with the signal loss and all, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to join a class action lawsuit over it. I’m waiting to see what the next update holds before I jump into anything drastic!

  • Johnny Rocket

    In the world of Shysters (a.k.a. Class Action Lawyers) this is what is known as a Mass Tort. The law firm (or firms) hope to assemble a sufficiently large number of aggrieved plaintiffs who agree to join in a group claim.

    The law firms charge nothing up front, and assume the financial burden of the lawsuit– which they hope never comes to trial. Once a settlement (or verdict) has been reached, the attorneys rake off their expenses (often billing at a rate of $500 per hour, charging $1 per page for each document photocopied, etc.), and only then is the remainder divided up amongst all those “aggrieved” plaintiffs. Probably in a few years, about the time iPhone6 is out.

    In cases of medical malpractice, the judgements/settlements can be huge, making this area of practice the most lucrative in the legal profession. You may have seen television ads (depending on how many potential plaintiffs there are in your market) running recently about the horrors of MESOTHELIOMA, a lung disease caused by asbestos, which includes a sad spouse of a victim and a “free book on coping with this disease,” and the tagline, “if you or any of your loved ones has been touched by M.., please call this number…” If you or your loved one is judged by their physician as a suitable candidate for joining this lawsuit, and you agree to let them handle it all for free, the number of their plaintiffs goes up by one, and the law firms potential reward goes up as well.
    For attorneys, Mass Torts can equal massive payouts.

    Can you imagine the legal feeding frenzy that would result if someone proved that a particular make or model of a cell phone actually caused cancer? One reason that some asbestos manufacturers are now out of business, as the judgments forced them into bankruptcy.

    Hope this attempt dies a very swift death.

  • waxwing

    What about the Nokia phone that shows the same problem? The video was posted on YouTube in May…before the iPhone 4 launch. Come one folks. Cover any antenna with your hand and you will lose some attenuation.

  • Me

    F*ckers… scavengers… mercenaries… come mierdas!

    It is because of them that this country is as hypochondriac, as belligerent, as paranoid as it is. Healthcare in the U.S. wouldn’t be as ridiculously expensive as it is if it wasn’t because of the American national sport of suing each other.

    There are two kinds of lawyers: the ones that had already f*cked you, and the ones that sooner or later will eventually f*ck you.

    Anyone using their services if also a come mierda!

  • Me

    I can almost guarantee that the same f*ckn’ l*wyers that are willing to go against Apple are using iPhones and Macs, and proudly showing them off to prove their status…

    D*mn immor*l b*st*rds!
    Sc*veng*r worms!
    Mediocre sub-hum*ns!
    Sh*meless douche b*gs!

    (Hey… I h*ve to prot*ct mys*lf fr*m th*m!)