A class action lawsuit against Apple filed in May 2014 has been dismissed by a district judge.
San Francisco District Judge William Alsup said that the plaintiffs failed to show that Apple indeed made "affirmative misrepresentations." The judgment came even after the plaintiffs cited for evidence the company's several reviews on its online store and the discussion on defective logic boards found in its own Support Communities forum.
The complainants, Uriel Marcus and Benedict Verceles, are given until Jan. 22 to amend their version of the lawsuit.
Marcus and Verceles complained that Apple allegedly sold its MacBook Pro even as the company knew that the machine's logic boards routinely fail within two years.
Apart from the defective logic boards, the plaintiffs made other claims, which include an assertion that the issue on defective logic boards was relayed to Tim Cook but that the latter did nothing to resolve it.
Apple also allegedly misled the consumers when it touted the reliability and functionality of the logic board through product campaigns. One example was when the company used the taglines "breakthrough," "state of the art" and "the world's most advanced notebook" to promote the MacBook.
"Plaintiffs have failed to allege that Apple's logic boards were unfit for their ordinary purposes or lacked a minimal level of quality," wrote Alsup. "Both plaintiffs were able to adequately use their computers for approximately 18 months and two years, respectively.
Omar Rosales, the plaintiffs' legal representative, declined to comment. Apple also refused to give any statement.
A logic board, sometimes referred to as motherboard, is the main printed circuit board normally found in computers and other systems that are expandable. It is a crucial component in the sense that it holds the memory and central processing unit. It also acts as a connector for the machine's other peripherals.
In the latest fiscal year of Apple, the company reported that unit sales of its Mac line of desktop and laptop PC reached 18.91 million.
The dismissed lawsuit is not in any way connected to the pending lawsuit that was filed in the latter part of 2014, which accused Apple of "consumer defraudment" after it allegedly sold the MacBook Pro laptops with faulty graphic cards in 2011.
