A lawsuit brought against Apple by four Apple Watch customers claims that an oversight made by the company in the making of the device can result in its screen detaching, cracking, or shattering, and ultimately causing bodily harm to the wearer — reports Bloomberg.
The plaintiffs allege that the Apple Watch’s design does not allow enough room inside the chassis for the Li-ion battery powering the device to swell with continued use, which can lead to the aforementioned issues with the screen.
“The detached, shattered, or cracked screens are a material and unreasonably dangerous safety hazard,” the customers said in their complaint, filed with a federal court in Oakland, California, on Thursday.
The complaint seeks to initiate a class-action lawsuit against Apple, representing all customers who purchased any model of the Apple Watch, starting with the very first generation all the way up to 2019’s Apple Watch Series 6.
Enclosed in the complaint is a photograph of a deep gash on the arm of one of the four plaintiffs, supposedly sustained when the screen of their Apple Watch Series 3 detached.
“The screens are made either of Ion-X glass (aluminum models) or sapphire crystal glass (stainless steel and titanium models) and each have a razor-sharp edge on all four sides,” reads the complaint.
Back in 2019, Apple started offering free screen replacements to customers who bought aluminum Series 2 and Series 3 Apple Watches.
“Apple has determined that, under very rare circumstances, a crack may form along the rounded edge of the screen,” the company said at the time.
The lawsuit alleges that Apple violated several consumer protection laws when the tech giant launched the Apple Watch with knowledge of the defect.
Apple is yet to officially comment on the situation.
The case: Smith v. Apple, Inc, 4:21-cv-09527, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).
