Re:WeWTF
by JumpCrisscross on Saturday August 17, 2019 @07:37PM
(#20727142)
> if you sued Apple for that, your suit would be dismissed because Apple's statement was "mere puffery"
Agreed. The example was facetious.
The underlying point, that a company producing a useful product can still commit fraud, to customers and/or to investors, stands.
Or possibly, if you sued Apple for that, your suit would be dismissed because Apple's statement was "mere puffery": an advertising claim so outlandish that no reasonable person would be expected to take it seriously.
A famous example is Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., where a Pepsi TV commercial showed some of the things you could get by redeeming Pepsi Points that you earned with your purchases. It begins with:
and ends with a high school student vertically landing a Harrier fighter jet in the school yard, opening the cockpit with no helmet on but a Pepsi in hand, and laughing "Sure beats the bus!" You could also buy extra Pepsi Points for ten cents each if you didn't have enough for the prize you wanted.John Leonard wanted that Harrier, so he sent PepsiCo a certified check for $700,000, minus $1.50 for the 15 Pepsi Points he already had, plus $10 shipping and handling.
When PepsiCo returned the check instead of sending his jet, he sued. Here's the commercial and the rest of the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdackF2H7Qc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_v._Pepsico,_Inc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery
(I'm not commenting on WeWork, only on the lunar iPhone example.)