DJI Technology Misleading Drone Specifications Class Action

DJI Technology, Inc. and SZ DJI Technology Co., Ltd. are Chinese companies that make drones and sell them to Americans. The drone specifications are listed on the companies’ website and/or on the back of the box the drones come in. But the complaint alleges that the drones cannot provide the flight time and distance/video performance noted because (1) the drones cannot be legally operated in the proper manner to achieve this, and (2) the conditions required cannot be attained by consumers.

Two classes have been proposed for this action:

• The National Class is all persons in the US who bought the products, not for resale, between October 20, 2017 and the present.
• The California Class is all persons in California who bought the products, not for resale, between October 20, 2017 and the present.

The products in question include the following drones:

• Mavic
• Mavic Pro
• Phantom
• Mavic Air
• DJI Zoom
• DJI Mini
• Mavic Mini

Drones—unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft systems (UASs)—are still a relatively new technology. The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have issued new rules for them as recently as 2016. A 2020 press release from the FAA on Part 107 UAS regulations directs, “Keep your drone within sight. If you use First Person View or similar technology, you must have a visual observer always keep your drone within unaided sight (for example, no binoculars).”

A number of requirements are listed under federal regulations for Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) aircraft operation. The complaint quotes these as saying, “With vision that is unaided by any device other than corrective lenses, the remote pilot in command, the visual observer (if one is used), and the person manipulating the flight control of the small unmanned aircraft system must be able to see the unmanned aircraft throughout the entire flight…”

This makes DJI’s representations about its drones’ capabilities “false and misleading,” the complaint claims, because federal law requires users to be within a visual line of sight so that “(1) consumers cannot legally operate … the DJI Products in a manner consistent with DJI’s representations and warranties [and] (2) the actual flight time and distance/video transmission requires conditions that are unobtainable to consumers.”

The complaint also alleges that DJI tries to conceal these facts “by its positioning of the disclaimers and limitations.” That is, the complaint claims that the disclaimers or limitations are deliberately not put with the specifications for the drones, on the website or the box.

The complaint states, flatly, “For a consumer to operate a DJI drone based on DJI’s representations and warranties would cause the consumer to violate federal law.” But, the complaint alleges, consumers do not know this until after they buy the drone.

It provides the example of the disclaimers and limitations for the Mavic Air 2 product, when it’s being piloted in the VLOS, which are in a tiny “unreadable font located on the twenty-third (23) page of DJI’s website for the Mavic Air 2…”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, Misleading Specifications, Negligent Misrepresentation