I hope I'm not being too naive, but Jim I need your help to understand this. Apple ran ads that said, of their 3G iPhone, "Twice the speed at half the price". A guy sued for false advertising because the phone was neither twice as fast nor was it half the price of the phone he'd had, which the ad targeted. So Apple filed an answer in which they say:
"15. Apple alleges that ... Plaintiff's claims are barred, in whole or in part, because Apple had no intention or knowledge, nor any reasonable grounds to know, that any such activities were untrue or misleading."
All right, so Apple is saying that asserting a 4 times improvement over this guy's phone was not known to Apple to be untrue in this case. I assert that this is a bald face lie, on top of the lie that they told in the ad.
To head off another bit of the discussion, let me present the next paragraph in their filing:
"16. Plaintiff's claims, and those of the purported class, are barred by the
fact that the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable
person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or
misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact."
I am all in favor of allowing Apple to say, "iPods will swallow
up all of Jupiter's goodness and explode it into you through your ears,
because it's such a great product!" because that's truly, obviously hyperbole. I do not think the twice/half claim is enough hyperbole for them to claim "any reasonable person", but okay, even that I'm okay with, except that:
"not knowing it was untrue" (item 15) and "this guy should have known it was hyperbole" (item 16) taken together proves that they are lying, right? They're contractory statements, yes?
"15. Apple alleges that ... Plaintiff's claims are barred, in whole or in part, because Apple had no intention or knowledge, nor any reasonable grounds to know, that any such activities were untrue or misleading."
All right, so Apple is saying that asserting a 4 times improvement over this guy's phone was not known to Apple to be untrue in this case. I assert that this is a bald face lie, on top of the lie that they told in the ad.
To head off another bit of the discussion, let me present the next paragraph in their filing:
"16. Plaintiff's claims, and those of the purported class, are barred by the
fact that the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable
person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or
misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact."
I am all in favor of allowing Apple to say, "iPods will swallow
up all of Jupiter's goodness and explode it into you through your ears,
because it's such a great product!" because that's truly, obviously hyperbole. I do not think the twice/half claim is enough hyperbole for them to claim "any reasonable person", but okay, even that I'm okay with, except that:
"not knowing it was untrue" (item 15) and "this guy should have known it was hyperbole" (item 16) taken together proves that they are lying, right? They're contractory statements, yes?
2 comments:
First, the answer is really nothing. It's just a first step in the process and basically your saying "Nah uh" over and over again. You prove the case and make serious arguments first through discovery and eventually at trial.
Second, you can argue conflicting things in the alternative. You absolutely can say "Look, I've never seen your bowl, and if I did see it, it already had a hole in it." On principle, it's a rights thing; practically, no one really knows what's going on yet and they should be able to preserve everything.
Finally, you can allege that you didn't reasonable know activities were misleading BECAUSE everyone knows that it is hyperbole.
Another alternative explanation might be that the responses are to two different segments of the claim. For example, 15 could be construed to mean Apple is asserting that at least one specific claim was true (hence, they did not view is as misleading). This might be (not being familiar with the facts of the case at all): "The 3G phone *is* twice as fast at certain functions in certain circumstances and thus on very narrow grounds it was a true statement which is not mean to be a characterization of every function of the device."
And 16 could be construed to mean that even though the 3g iPhone's total cost was more than the cost of the original, the ads were referring to the initial expense not the total lifetime cost and the phrasing of the ads was clear enough that no reasonable person would have believed them to make any other claim.
So two different defenses against two discrete allegations. (I made up my facts, though, to illustrate the point.)
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