The family of a 12-year-old boy is suing Apple ... claiming he has permanent hearing loss, after wearing AirPods during an Amber Alert.
The family filed suit Monday ... accusing the company of negligence and fraud, claiming the boy's life has been 'severely altered'.
According to legal docs obtained by TMZ ... Carlos Gordoa and Ariani Reyes claim Apple AirPods ruptured their son's eardrum back in May of 2020, while he was wearing the product and watching Netflix on his phone.
The family says, when an Amber Alert went off, it was so loud it caused tinnitus -- ringing in the ears. They claim he now suffers from dizziness and must wear a hearing aid.
The fam claims the Apple product is defective because it plays alerts at a dangerous level ... no matter what volume the user has chosen.
To take it a step further ... Gordoa and Reyes say Apple had known that the AirPods played extremely loud alerts that did not match the selected volume ... from tons of comments online. They say the complaints date back to 2019.
The family says Apple did not give a warning about the volume of the alerts.