A Palm Beach County woman is suing Apple for $350 million, alleging that staff at the Apple Store in The Mall at Wellington Green treated her like a thief because she is Black and then returned her iPhone damaged.
Curtashia Oliver, who is representing herself, went to the store with her husband on Sept. 25 for a scheduled appointment. She had forgotten the passcode to her iPhone 14 Plus and wanted the device erased. According to the complaint, an employee told a coworker, “She’s Black, she probably stole it,” and Oliver says she heard the remark.
The lawsuit says staff took the phone to a back room and kept her at the store for hours past closing. When it was returned, the phone had been fully taken apart, its internal retention screws were removed and it appeared to have been dropped. It now will not get past recovery mode, leaving her without her photos, saved passwords and phone number. On Nov. 3, staff allegedly told her the motherboard was damaged and nothing could be done.
The complaint, filed Nov. 8 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, accuses Apple of race discrimination under federal civil rights law, along with breach of bailment, trespass to chattels and negligence. Oliver is seeking $1,200 to replace the phone and nearly $350 million in compensatory and punitive damages. She has also filed a discrimination charge with the Florida Commission on Human Relations, and the complaint says Apple has not meaningfully responded to a pre-suit notice she sent in October.
These are allegations in a civil filing, and the claims have not been decided in court. Apple had not publicly responded to the claims in the source report.
