A California law firm has filed a putative class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of California against Tricopian, Inc. and SaveMe Batteries North America, the companies behind the FuelRod portable charger and swapping machines at Walt Disney World and the Disneyland Resort.

From the court filing:

…This class action seeks compensatory damages, restitution, disgorgement of profits, costs of suit, actual damages, attorneys’ fees, costs, declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and any other relief that this Court deems just and proper arising from Defendants’ breach of contract, and unfair, unlawful, unethical, fraudulent, misleading, unconscionable, and/or deceptive business policies and practices related to Defendants’ manufacturing, advertising, marketing, and/or sales of their FuelRod product and related service.

The case, filed by the law office of Francis J. Flynn, Jr., with named plaintiff Gabriel Veasey, of Sarasota, Florida, claims that FuelRod’s “unilaterally making such a fundamental change in the nature of its support of the product so as to deprive consumers of the primary benefit of the bargain.” The marketing message of “Free Unlimited Swaps” was the primary benefit of the product, the suit claims, since the FuelRod charger itself was quite inferior to other chargers costing much less.

We’ve covered the upcoming changes to the FuelRod kiosks, and the lawsuit shows photos of other kiosks located at airports that, just like the machines at the Disney parks, advertised Unlimited Free Swaps.

The suit also includes photos of a FuelRod kiosk at Epcot prominently advertising the Free Unlimited Swapping.

The suit goes on to reference our article when the kiosks were changed to eliminate the “free” moniker in relation to swapping.

The court filing claims this is a violation of California False Advertising Law, California Unfair Competition Law, California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and Breach of Contract.