For more than three years, the main legal fight over AirTag stalking was a single proposed class action in San Francisco, Hughes v. Apple, Inc. That case no longer exists in its original form. Here is what the court decided along the way, and why the claims now move forward one person at a time.
What Was Hughes v. Apple?
Hughes v. Apple, Inc., No. 3:22-cv-07668, was filed on December 5, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and assigned to Judge Vince Chhabria. By the time of the court’s first major ruling, it included thirty-eight plaintiffs who said they were stalked by someone using an AirTag. Most were stalked outside California, across the United States and Canada.
The plaintiffs alleged that Apple knew the AirTag would be a useful tool for stalkers and that its safety features were not enough. Apple has said the AirTag was designed to help people find their belongings, not to track people, and that it condemns any malicious use of its products.
What Did the Court Allow to Go Forward?
On March 15, 2024, Judge Chhabria dismissed most of the claims as inadequately pleaded. But he allowed negligence and strict product liability claims by three plaintiffs stalked in California to continue. He called it a close question, and wrote that Apple may ultimately be right that California law did not require it to do more, but that the question could not be decided at that early stage.
The ruling described the plaintiffs’ allegations about the AirTag’s safety features. Among them:
- Alerts could arrive hours after tracking began. The plaintiffs alleged Apple estimated four to eight hours, and that alerts at launch could take seventy-two hours.
- A person could not start a search for an unknown AirTag on their own, and an alert that went away might not come back.
- The AirTag’s sound was alleged to be around sixty decibels, about as loud as normal conversation.
- Instructions for removing the speaker were alleged to be easy to find, and modified “silent” AirTags were alleged to be sold online.
- An AirTag could be disabled only by removing its battery, which requires finding it first, and removing the battery was alleged to alert the owner.
The court treated those allegations as true only for the purpose of ruling on the motion. They have not been proven.
On November 18, 2024, after the plaintiffs amended their complaint, the court ruled on a second motion to dismiss. That order addressed which state’s law would apply to plaintiffs outside California. It found, at that stage, that California law could govern the claims of plaintiffs who owned Apple devices, because of the choice-of-law clause in Apple’s software license, while warning that the theory might not survive later in the case.
Why Was Class Certification Denied?
The plaintiffs asked the court to certify a class. On March 9, 2026, Judge Chhabria denied the motion for the reasons he gave at a hearing on March 5. The written order is one page long and does not restate those reasons.
A denial means no one is automatically part of the case just because they were tracked with an AirTag. There is no class settlement and no claims fund.
What Happened After the Class Was Denied?
At a case management conference on April 3, 2026, the court granted a request to sever the cases. One plaintiff stayed on the original docket. Everyone else who wanted to keep going had twenty-eight days to file an individual lawsuit. Dozens of new cases followed, and the court issued orders relating them in May 2026.
Apple then asked to move cases to the districts where the plaintiffs lived. On July 8, 2026, the court transferred the remaining Hughes case to the Central District of California, finding that the events occurred there and that many witnesses were likely there.
Those transfers would have spread the cases across the country. Instead, on October 2, 2026, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation brought the federal AirTag stalking cases back together as MDL No. 3199 before Judge Noël Wise in the Northern District of California. The Panel noted that most of the plaintiffs had been severed from Hughes. We explain that order in AirTag Stalking Lawsuits Against Apple Centralized in New Federal MDL.
What Does This Mean for People Who Were Tracked?
Because there is no class, a person who wants to bring a claim generally needs a lawsuit of their own. Each case will turn on its own facts, such as when the tracking happened, which phone the person used, which safety features existed at the time, what alerts the person received and the harm that followed.
Deadlines to file vary by state and by the type of claim. Waiting for a class settlement is not an option, because the class was denied.
If you were tracked with an AirTag without your consent, our Apple AirTag stalking lawsuit page explains what a case review considers and what information can help. Request a free case review.
Submitting information does not create an attorney-client relationship. Each potential claim is evaluated individually, and no outcome can be promised.
This article is general information about how these cases work. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney-client relationship, and no two claims are alike. If something here sounds like your situation, the useful next step is a conversation about the facts.