THE Central London County Court has awarded Deric White, a London pensioner, the sum of $1,791 from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) as payment for damages claim and legal fees via a lawsuit which arose as a result of data which was lost from the plaintiff’s phone when he took it into the Regent Street Apple Store for repairs.
The store engineers performed a factory reset on White’s iPhone, and inadvertently wiped off contacts and photos of about 15 years including photos taken recently during White’s honeymoon in the Seychelles. He promptly took Apple to court on charges of negligence.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) declared that White had been informed of a possible loss of data in the course of the repairs to his iPhone. It claimed that White had agreed though the data on the device had not been stored to iCloud.
Before the ruling, Mr White reportedly decided to settle out of court if Apple would pay with a new monitor and scanner. Apple’s lawyers declined the offer, and the court ruled for White. The judge agreed that the Apple engineers had indeed been negligent in their handling of the claimant’s device.
“I would not let it go. Having fought cancer, I was not going to get defeated by Apple. My wife was reduced to tears when they wiped my phone. Everyone tells me this has happened to them or their mate. I did this for the common man. I would say to anybody who has got a gripe with Apple – don’t let them boss you about and ignore you.” said retired property manager Deric White.
Mr White claimed that he decided to push the suit and not back down because everyone he knew had experienced such an incident with theirs or their friend’s phone.
While, White celebrated the victory as a triumph of the common man over the tech giant, he also encouraged others who had been affected to also seek reprieve. For Apple, White’s victory is just negligible.
