Judge says Apple knew its MacBook Pro screens would go bad

A judge has decided that Apple knew that there was a problem with a display cable on the company’s MacBook Pro from 2016, but it continued to sell the product, according to The Verge. A lawsuit has been filed, and will move forward, by nine different plaintiffs at this time, and it could potentially lead to a class-action lawsuit.

The issue, dubbed “flexgate,” is with a specific cable inside the laptop. There was a cable inside early versions of Apple’s 2016 MacBook Pro that was too short and delicate and could easily be damaged. This caused uneven lighting on the display, which is unacceptable, especially in a laptop that had a $1,800 MSRP.

The article mentioned above says that Judge Edward Davila has decided that Apple should have known about the defect in its displays. The judge wrote in the order to move forward with the lawsuit,

“The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect.”

However, the real controversy in this matter comes with how Apple handled the known issue. First, they silently fixed the issue on newer models but did nothing for those who had purchased the defective models. Only after a petition was organized with over 15,000 signatures did the company open up its MacBook Pro Service Program. The company has since handled these issues a bit better, but it definitely left some customers in the dark originally.

It is still uncertain what exactly will come of this. Though there is technically not a class-action lawsuit as of yet, there are multiple individuals that have come forward about this issue. Whatever happens, I’m sure Apple’s legal team will have no problem figuring everything out.

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