Hughes v. Apple, Inc.

Background

Thirty-eight plaintiffs sued Apple based on alleged stalking involving AirTags. A separate ruling filed at the same time addressed negligence and products-liability claims brought by five plaintiffs who were injured in California. This more abbreviated ruling addressed the remaining claims of those five plaintiffs and all claims brought by the other thirty-three plaintiffs.

The court ruled on Apple's motion to dismiss, which asks whether the complaint adequately states claims for relief. The court treated several allegations as pleading deficiencies rather than deciding the ultimate truth of the plaintiffs' allegations.

Common-Law Claims

The plaintiffs argued for the first time in response to the motion that California law governed all thirty-eight plaintiffs' common-law claims, relying in part on a choice-of-law provision in a Software License Agreement that the complaint had not mentioned. The court found that the complaint did not give Apple adequate notice of which state's law governed the common-law claims. The court also noted meaningful differences among state laws and that more than twenty states' laws might apply.

The court dismissed the non-California plaintiffs' claims for negligence, negligence per se, products liability under the consumer-expectations test, products liability under the risk-utility test, and intrusion upon seclusion on that basis.

California Invasion of Privacy Act Claims

The court dismissed the claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, or CIPA. The plaintiffs had not adequately alleged that Apple used AirTags to determine a person's location or movement, as required by the statutory provision they invoked. The complaint alleged that an AirTag used Bluetooth signals from nearby Apple devices to report the AirTag's location to its owner, but it did not allege that Apple could determine the AirTag's location or connect the AirTag's location or movement to particular individuals.

The court rejected the argument that features of Apple's interface showed that Apple had the required agency and knowledge. Those allegations described how Apple's operating system worked but did not allege that Apple used the device to track a person. The court did not decide the parties' dispute over whether Apple's Find My network was end-to-end encrypted because the complaint lacked the necessary tracking allegations.

California Constitutional Privacy Claims

The court also dismissed the plaintiffs' claims based on the California constitutional right to privacy. The complaint alleged that Apple violated the plaintiffs' privacy by intentionally tracking their locations with AirTags, but it did not allege that Apple tracked them. The court observed that, in theory, providing or operating a tool used by someone else to invade privacy might support a claim, but that was not the theory pleaded in the complaint.

California Unfair Competition Law Claims

The plaintiffs acknowledged that the complaint mistakenly included three California Unfair Competition Law, or UCL, claims for plaintiffs other than Lauren Hughes. The court addressed Hughes's claims and found that Hughes was not injured in California, making it unclear whether she could bring a UCL claim. The court also found that she had not adequately alleged statutory standing, meaning the required connection between her claimed loss of money or property and Apple's conduct.

Hughes alleged that her economic injury was the cost of moving apartments, but she had decided to move before discovering the AirTag and was already gathering belongings for the move. The court therefore found that the move was not caused by the AirTag. Her later description of time and money spent driving to an Apple store and police station was too indefinite, and her assertion that she might incur future mitigation costs lacked facts describing imminent expenses.

State Consumer-Protection Claims

The plaintiffs brought claims under consumer-protection laws in Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, alleging that Apple understated the risk of AirTag stalking, including by causing news outlets to describe AirTags as “stalker-proof.” The court found that each of these laws required a causal connection between Apple's alleged misrepresentations or omissions and the plaintiffs' injuries, generally through reliance on the statements or the materiality of the omissions.

The complaint did not allege that any plaintiff saw the “stalker-proof” statements or relied on them. It also did not explain how clearer warnings from Apple about AirTag stalking would have prevented or reduced the plaintiffs' injuries. The court identified an additional likely standing problem because the plaintiffs did not purchase the AirTags and instead alleged that the AirTags were placed on their belongings without consent. The court found unpersuasive the argument that the stalkers' conduct amounted to a transfer or assignment of the AirTags.

Disposition

Judge Vince Chhabria partially granted Apple's motion to dismiss. All dismissals were with leave to amend, and any amended complaint had to be filed within 21 days of the ruling. The opinion does not state the disposition of the claims addressed in the separately filed ruling.