We show how some Ulam stability issues can be approached for functions taking values in 2-Banach spaces. We use the example of the well-known Cauchy equation $f(x+y)=f(x)+f(y)$, but we believe that this method can be applied for many other equations. In particular we provide an extension of an earlier stability result that has been motivated by a problem of Th. M. Rassias. The main tool is a recent fixed point theorem in some spaces of functions with values in 2-Banach spaces.

We obtain some results on approximate solutions of the generalised linear functional equation $\sum _{i=1}^{m}L_{i}f(\sum _{j=1}^{n}a_{ij}x_{j})=0$ for functions mapping a normed space into a normed space. We show that, under suitable assumptions, the approximate solutions are in fact exact solutions. The theorems correspond to and complement recent results on the hyperstability of generalised linear functional equations.

We prove a hyperstability result for the Cauchy functional equation $f(x+ y)= f(x)+ f(y)$, which complements some earlier stability outcomes of J. M. Rassias. As a consequence, we obtain the slightly surprising corollary that for every function $f$, mapping a normed space ${E}_{1} $ into a normed space ${E}_{2} $, and for all real numbers $r, s$ with $r+ s\gt 0$ one of the following two conditions must be valid:

$$\begin{eqnarray*}\displaystyle \sup _{x, y\in E_{1}}\Vert f(x+ y)- f(x)- f(y)\Vert \hspace{0.167em} \mathop{\Vert x\Vert }\nolimits ^{r} \hspace{0.167em} \mathop{\Vert y\Vert }\nolimits ^{s} = \infty , &&\displaystyle\end{eqnarray*}$$

$$\begin{eqnarray*}\displaystyle \sup _{x, y\in E_{1}}\Vert f(x+ y)- f(x)- f(y)\Vert \hspace{0.167em} \mathop{\Vert x\Vert }\nolimits ^{r} \hspace{0.167em} \mathop{\Vert y\Vert }\nolimits ^{s} = 0. &&\displaystyle\end{eqnarray*}$$