If you’ve used OS X since the launch of 10.5 Leopard in the fall of 2007, you’re probably familiar with Time Machine. One of the flagship features of Leopard, Time Machine allows users to create automatic, incremental backups of their files and store them to an external hard drive. To go along with Time Machine, Apple also released Time Capsule, a combination external drive/wi-fi base station. Unfortunately, the Time Capsule was plagued with hardware defects. There were numerous stories of Time Capsule failures resulting in lost user data. Eventually, Apple issued a recall and began replacing the devices.
Unfortunately, Apple’s recall didn’t help Perminder Tung of Surrey, British Columbia. Tung, an attorney, purchased a Time Capsule in 2009, before the recall period began. He used it to back up two MacBooks and an iPhone. Unfortunately, the Time Capsule crashed last month, losing all the backed up data, including photos from an iPhone that had also failed. Among those photos were pictures of the birth of Tung’s first child.
Understandably upset, Tung took his Time Capsule to his local Apple store, where he was told about the design flaws that had plagued earlier models and the recall. Unable to recover the data, the store offered to replace his Time Capsule with a new one. Tung refused, though, and after doing some research about problems with the Time Capsule, filed suit against Apple in small claims court.
The complaint accuses Apple of “a fundamental and total breach of contract” for providing Tung with a faulty Time Capsule. Tung is asking for the cost of his original Time Capsule – $368.48 – the cost of the wireless router and external hard drive he purchased to replace his failed Time Capsule, and an additional $25,000 in damages. The complaint is embedded below:
