5punk

Microsoft Served With Xbox 360 Lawsuit
Some guy in Florida is seeking $5 million in damages from Microsoft because his Xbox 360 scratched two games. While everyone knows that tipping your 360 from upright into the horizontal position will cause this, the guy claims that the he did not tip his and the 360 is simply "negligently designed and manufactured."

Brouwer said his Xbox 360 scratched two games, "Gears of War" and "Madden NFL 07," and that Microsoft offered to replace them for a $20 fee. He is seeking more than $5 million in damages, according to the court filing.

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Publish Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2007 17:07:00 CDT
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$5million in damages. If it had fired both discs out of the console and gouged out his eyes, I might be sympathetic, but scratching two games?

It's just fucked up. I hate the culture that makes people think they can shirk any responsibility for their actions and sue someone for their own fucktard behaviour. Especially for something so bloody meaningless as this.

Well, I'm assuming this is a class action lawsuit.
You can file a lawsuit against anyone for any reason you like, but that does not mean you stand any chance of surviving a motion for summary judgment.

So in English, that means he will probably get laughed out of the initial hearing that decides whether or not the case has any merit?

Still, the fact that it is even being attempted is what I find deplorable.

Lateralus wrote:So in English, that means he will probably get laughed out of the initial hearing that decides whether or not the case has any merit?

Well, Microsoft have to ask ("move") for that hearing, but yes.

There's another complication for class action cases, because the guy needs to get something called "class certification". Basically a judge has to sign off on various aspects of the case when someone wants to litigate on behalf of a large group of potential plaintiffs (although there's a little more to it than that

).

Lateralus wrote:Still, the fact that it is even being attempted is what I find deplorable.

Yeah, but unfortunately you'll always get fuckwits.

Is there not some penalty for being such an utter waste of time?

I can understand that he might want more than $20, unless you can actually buy two new games for that over in cheapskateland, but $5m damages were quite clearly not caused.

I think gouge out his eyes as punishment.

Lateralus wrote:I think gouge out his eyes as punishment.

Spork or Grapefruit spoon?

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:<s>Spork or G</s>rape<s>fruit spoon</s>?

FIX'D

or a Spork coated in grapefruit juice

FatherJack wrote:I can understand that he might want more than $20, unless you can actually buy two new games for that over in cheapskateland, but $5m damages were quite clearly not caused.

That's why I assume it's a class action lawsuit, like I said up there.

Use an Xbox controller, and just pound his eyes until they fall out.

eion wrote:some legal words

Basically he's probably trying to sue on behalf of everyone in the US whose xbox 360 scratched their game discs.
See the Wikipedia article, or just check this out.

eion wrote:Basically he's probably trying to sue on behalf of everyone in the US whose xbox 360 scratched their game discs.
See the Wikipedia article, or just check this out.

That's why I didn't look it up, that just breaks my logic, however the second link explains perfectly.

FatherJack wrote: That's why I didn't look it up, that just breaks my logic, however the second link explains perfectly.

Well, the rationale behind them is to solve collective action problems when someone does a little bit of harm to a large number of people... individually the chances of a person suing for something trivial are minimal, not least because attorney's fees alone would be more than they'd recover, but by suing on behalf of other people the whole thing becomes much more worthwhile. Named plaintiffs in the class get a larger recovery than class members who aren't personally involved in the litigation, which gives an incentive to try this kind of thing.

But er...$20 a disc......$5 million.

That's ALOT of people who need to sign up.

Mathematics timez:

5,000,000 / 20 = 250,000 individual disc claims.

buzzmong wrote:But er...$20 a disc......$5 million.

That's ALOT of people who need to sign up.

Mathematics timez:

5,000,000 / 20 = 250,000 individual disc claims.

For a class action, you don't sign up - you have to opt out to not be a part of the suit (and thus bound by the outcome). That's why a judge has to sign off on class certification.

So wait- who gets the money if Mister Soft loses?

Stoat wrote:So wait- who gets the money if Mister Soft loses?

The lawyers for the class typically get a cut of about 35%, the named plaintiffs get a small but significant amount (in the five to six figure range I'm guessing), and the remainder gets split between class members that they can identify (which is where class certification comes in), often in the form of a cheque for a very small amount of money.

All for being too damn thick to realise that a console not designed to be put on its side may not work the way intended if it is put on its side.