In re Carrier IQ, Inc.
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
78 F. Supp. 3d 1051 (2015)
Relevant factsFree
Software from Carrier IQ came pre-installed on eighteen customers' (plaintiffs) mobile phones and secretly collected their personal data and communications. The customers sued the phone manufacturers (defendants) for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, and the manufacturers moved to dismiss, arguing a phone's core purpose is communication and nothing alleged the phones couldn't communicate.
IssueFree
Whether, to constitute a breach of the implied warranty of merchantability, a product's defect must be so fundamental that it affects the product's core functionality.