Hughes v. Apple, Inc.

Background

Apple makes and sells AirTags, small devices that report their location through Apple’s device network. Thirty-eight plaintiffs alleged that stalkers used AirTags to follow their locations and movements. They claimed that Apple’s safety measures—including screen notifications, sound alerts, and the ability to disable an AirTag—were inadequate and that Apple should have done more to reduce the foreseeable risk of stalking.

The opinion addressed the tort claims of five plaintiffs who were stalked in California under California law. The allegations included delays or confusion involving notifications, difficulty locating AirTags, inadequate or muffled sounds, and the inability to disable an AirTag without physically finding it. The court treated the factual allegations as true at this stage, as required when deciding a motion to dismiss.

Negligence claims

The plaintiffs alleged that Apple had a duty to use reasonable care in designing, marketing, and introducing AirTags to the market. They claimed Apple breached that duty by selling AirTags with insufficient safeguards against stalking and that the alleged defects caused their injuries. Apple challenged both the existence of a duty and causation.

The court applied California’s framework for deciding whether public policy creates an exception to the general duty to use reasonable care. The court considered the foreseeability of stalking-related harm, the certainty of injury, the connection between Apple’s conduct and the injuries, moral blame, preventing future harm, the burden of imposing a duty, and insurance considerations.

The court held at the pleading stage that Apple was not excused from the general duty of reasonable care. It reasoned that stalking was a foreseeable consequence of making and selling a small, affordable, easy-to-use tracking device; that Apple allegedly knew about the risks; that victims had little control over the product’s safety mechanisms; and that Apple was in a position to reduce the risk. The court acknowledged that a third-party stalker added distance between Apple’s conduct and the injuries, but concluded that the connection was sufficiently close to allow the claims to proceed.

The court emphasized that whether Apple actually used reasonable care and whether particular safety measures caused particular injuries involved breach and proximate cause, not the initial duty question. Those issues could be addressed later in the case.

Causation and the individual claims

The court stated that proximate cause generally presents a factual question that cannot be resolved from the complaint unless the only reasonable conclusion is that there was no causation. It found the allegations sufficient for Kirkman, O’Neill, and Humphreys.

Kirkman alleged that his estranged wife used an AirTag to locate his home and that delayed, unclear notifications and difficulty finding the device prolonged the stalking. O’Neill alleged that delayed notification, inadequate sound, limits on locating the AirTag, and the inability to disable it remotely allowed the stalker to obtain extensive information about her and prolonged the stalking. Humphreys alleged that unclear and inconsistent notifications and delayed sound alerts prolonged the stalking until she located the device.

The court found the allegations insufficient for Hembd because the complaint did not adequately connect Apple’s alleged safety defects to his injuries; the safety mechanisms appeared to have worked roughly as alleged in his case. The court found Luan’s allegations too vague to show how the AirTags or their alleged defects caused the broader harms she described. The court dismissed those claims with leave to amend.

Strict products liability

Strict products liability is a claim that holds a manufacturer responsible when a defective product causes injury. Apple argued that these claims failed because the plaintiffs alleged emotional and psychological injuries rather than physical harm or property damage, and because the plaintiffs did not satisfy California’s tests for proving a defective design.

The court rejected Apple’s argument that the economic-loss rule barred the claims. That rule distinguishes tort recovery for physical injury from recovery for economic losses, such as repair costs or lost profits. The court concluded that the rule did not establish a separate bar to claims for emotional harm, and Apple had not identified another doctrine requiring dismissal on that basis.

California recognizes a consumer-expectations test and a risk-benefit test for defective-product claims. The court held that the consumer-expectations test was unavailable for these allegations because the claimed safety issues involved complex technology and ordinary consumers would not know how safe the product could have been made. The court held that the risk-benefit test was the appropriate framework.

Under that test, a product may be defective if its design creates an excessive preventable danger. The plaintiff must initially show that the design proximately caused the injury; the defendant then may try to show that the design’s benefits, considering factors such as the feasibility and cost of alternatives, outweigh its risks. The court ruled that the plaintiffs did not have to identify a feasible alternative design at the pleading stage and had identified measures they believed could make AirTags safer.

Disposition

The court denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the negligence and risk-benefit strict-products-liability claims brought by Kirkman, O’Neill, and Humphreys. It dismissed the same claims brought by Hembd and Luan with leave to amend. The opinion also states that the remaining plaintiffs’ claims were dismissed with leave to amend in an accompanying order. Discovery could proceed immediately on the surviving claims, and any amended complaint was due within 21 days of the ruling.