Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty ImagesTheodore A. Kim filed the lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court last week.
"It levels the playing field so that just a simple consumer like me can sue a big company without having to worry about getting lawyers and all that other stuff," Kim told Insider in a phone interview last week. "I feel like at least I want my day in court." The phone Kim's suing over was originally purchased from an authorized Apple seller in Vietnam in October 2020, he said. The iPhone 12 was under Apple's warranty until October 2022, he said.
"And so I brought it into the store and they sent it to the repair depot - then they came back and said, 'Yeah, we're not going to fix this because it's been tampered with,'" Kim said. "And I said: 'Tampered with in what way?'"