Colorado Sees First Lawsuit Under ‘Right To Repair’ Law

from the fix-your-own-shit dept

At this point all fifty states have considered passing “right to repair” law aimed at making it easier and cheaper for consumers (and independent repair shops) to repair their tech. That said, only Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, California, Oregon, and Washington have actually passed laws. And of those states, none have seen any enforcement despite no shortage of offenders.

So it’s interesting to see the first lawsuit filed in Colorado. Colorado technically has three right to repair laws: one protecting wheelchairs passed in 2022; one covering agricultural equipment passed in 2023; and one expanding coverage to HVAC equipment and most tech in 2024.

A company named Acme Revival, which connects customers with electronics repair technicians, has sued three companies for violating Colorado’s right to repair laws. Three different lawsuits are targeting Toast, a point-of-sale system provider, Owl Labs, a maker of meeting cameras, and Blackmagic Design, a maker of digital camera equipment — claiming they’re violating the law.

The three different lawsuits state that all three companies have made it very difficult for customers to obtain tools, parts, manuals, and firmware/software needed to upgrade and repair point-of-sale terminals, card readers, cameras, and other restaurant-related hardware:

“Acme Revival has received hundreds of requests from owners seeking repairs for Toast devices. The reported problems have included failed batteries and charging systems, damaged housings and touchscreens, malfunctioning card readers and buttons, circuit-board failures, loose or damaged connectors, damaged cables, damaged ports, and other defects requiring replacement parts or technical repair materials.

Acme Revival alleges that it has been unable to complete certain repairs because Toast failed or refused to provide the necessary repair materials.”

There’s really no shortage of large offenders who make it difficult to find parts and tools, buy up independent repair centers to try and monopolize repair (see: John Deere), leverage annoying DRM to make repair difficult or impossible, or engage in the practice of “parts pairing,” which ensures hardware owners can only access large and costly parts assemblages — not individual parts.

The bipartisan anger at such practices has resulted in the right to repair movement seeing the most meaningful traction of any consumer rights issue in the country. Hopefully enforcement steadily scales up to match the full scale of public annoyance.

Filed Under: colorado, consumers, hardware, manuals, parts, repair, right to repair, software, state law