A class action lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for Northern California is accusing Apple of fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of implied warranty, unjust enrichment, and breaking the Magnuson-Moss and Song-Beverly Warranty Acts due to faults in the company’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

The defect, referred to as “touch disease,” sees affected iPhone touchscreens become unresponsive and fail, and often involves a flickering gray bar at the top of an affected phone.

According to iFixit, which first labeled the problem, owners of affected phones, which they describe as “a ton,” find their iPhone suddenly stops working properly along with the Touch ID sensor refusing to work at all; they suggest that the problem is caused by faulty touch controllers on the logic board that is responsible for both the display and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

“Apple has long been aware of the defective iPhones. Yet, notwithstanding its longstanding knowledge of this design defect, Apple routinely has refused to repair the iPhones without charge when the defect manifests,” the complaint notes.

“Many other iPhone owners have communicated with Apple’s employees and agents to request that Apple remedy and/or address the Touchscreen Defect and/or resultant damage at no expense. Apple has failed and/or refused to do so.”

“As a result of Apple’s unfair, deceptive and/or fraudulent business practices, owners of the iPhones, including Plaintiffs, have suffered an ascertainable loss of money and/or property and/or value. The unfair and deceptive trade practices committed by Apple were conducted in a manner giving rise to substantial aggravating circumstances.”

Jury trial

According to Macrumors the lawsuit demands that Apple repair, recall, and/or replace affected iPhones and to extend the warranties of those devices for a reasonable period of time.

For good measure the plaintiffs are also seeking unspecified damages and have requested that the lawsuit is heard before a jury.

Exactly how many iPhone users have been affected by the defect is not clear, although AppleInsider recently claimed that 11 percent of all Apple Store repairs were now related to the problem.

Apple is yet to publicly comment on the issue.

Even if only a small percentage of iPhones are affected, the potential overall number could be staggering, with Apple having sold over 1 billion iPhones to date, and well over 100 million of the affected model.

As the lawsuit notes, “Members of the Class are so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable [to count],” which gives a reasonable idea as to how widespread the problem is.

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