Barnes and Noble proprietary charging cables for e-readers and tablets are notoriously defective. Thousands of users have reported that they break really easy and once the one year warranty is up, you have to spend $12 to buy a new set. A new class action lawsuit claims that The Barnes & Noble knowingly sold Nook e-readers and tablets with defective charging devices, rendering the tablets useless.
According to the Pen Record Michelle Hainley of Lancaster County filed a class action lawsuit Oct. 7 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, citing breach of implied warranty and breach of express warranty.
The lawsuit states that Hainley purchased a Nook Color e-reader in December 2011 and the charging cable malfunctioned less than a year later. The complaint states that Nook chargers and power adapters also would dangerously fray and become defective after a few hours of use. The suit further states that the defendant was aware of the problem, having received thousands of complaints, and in response issued the same defective replacement parts to consumers in violation of the product warranty.
It will be interesting to see how this lawsuit plays out. If it is successful we might see similar court cases involving Kobo, who also was notorious for broken cables on the VOX and Arc line of tablets.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
