Lawsuit Demands Apple Cease Selling iPhones Until Texting While Driving Lock-out Is Implemented
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Boasting that the company’s “enormous market share” means that it’s also the “largest contributor” to the act of texting while driving, one California man is now seeking class-action status on his recently filed lawsuit against Apple. His chief complaint? That the Cupertino-company continues to place the importance of its “bottom line” ahead of the safety and welfare of its customers, primarily because the company “willfully chose” not to implement a software-based ‘lock-out’ mechanism that would otherwise disable most of iPhone’s key features while its owner is buckled-in behind the wheel of a car.
“If texting and driving is a vessel of trouble, Apple is the captain of the ship,” said California resident, Julio Ceja, who filed the lawsuit early Tuesday morning with the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
In addition to his demand that Apple cease selling its iPhone in the entirety of the Golden State until the company is able to release a ‘lock-out’ update inclusive of support for its many legacy iPhones, Ceja is seeking Attorneys fees and court costs, as applicable by law. He is not, surprisingly enough, seeking any cash settlement; however he hopes to ultimately gain class-action status on the case so as to set a strong precedent. He asserts that its “downright shocking” how smartphone manufacturers, like Apple, allegedly “do nothing to help shield the public at large from the dangers associated with the use of their phones.”
Court documents cite how Apple knew full-well about the dangers of texting and driving, and that the company’s 2008-dated ‘Lock-out’ patent — although it never came to be an actual, employable utility — is an acknowledgment to that effect. The patent, which was granted in 2008 but published in 2014, describes a method by which a “motion analyzer” [installed on iPhone] would be able to detect its motion — disabling certain background processes once the device has crossed a pre-set speed threshold.
The case is being filed almost three-months after the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration formally recommended that all smartphone makers seek to implement a so-called “Driver Mode” — a simple interface that would, in the way of Apple’s 2008 ‘lock-out’ patent, prevent drivers from accessing certain features on their device that are in no way related to driving, such as texting or watching YouTube videos, for instance. And it comes just one month after a Texas family sued Apple for failing to implement the same feature, which the plaintiffs allege was the causative factor in their son’s fatal, FaceTime-influenced car accident.
So why is Julio Ceja out there making such beastly mountains out of molehills over all of this? Turns out he was actually rear-ended, himself, by a driver who was — you guessed it — texting while driving! Of course, we’ll have to just wait and see if this complaint holds validity in the court of law. Ceja is apparently seeking a full-throated jury trial, so suffice it to say, this probably won’t be the last we hear of these proceedings.
Do you believe this lawsuit is reasonable?
Tell us why or why not in the comments below.
