Why are consumers so stupid sometimes?

olegna

but YOU knew what I meant, right? ;-)

stymyx

not hating just being a law geek.

sicboater

THIS KIND of lawsuit is exactly why we desperately need a "loser pays" system in America. Go ahead and file your brain-dead, frivolous lawsuit. BUT, realize before you do that if and when you lose, you not only have to pay your own legal fees, but the legal fees of those you are bringing the suit against.

Do the homework. Know the rules. Use your brain. And for chrissakes, ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN FRIGGIN' ACTIONS!!!

God, no wonder the rest of the world thinks Americans are idiots. With morons like this around, it's a reputation we deserve!

stymyx

morcheeba

However, please don't conflate this with the McDonald's Coffee lawsuit... there were a number of facts in that case in favor of the plaintiff, who required a 7-day hospital stay, several skin grafts, and had never sued anyone ever before. The jury awarded here two days coffee revenue as a punitive measure (about $2.7 million dollars) but the judge lowered the amount to $480,000.

See:
[lawandhelp.com]
and
[www.vanosteen.com]

- Bob R.

bob_pdx

macspirit

Dear lord, my english profs would've crucified me for that totally unnecessary, and inappropriate apostrophe. Is it really so incredibly difficult to get someone who knows the (apparantly complicated) rules of the apostrophe to look over your class action lawsuit before you file it? Eesh!

ClintonOddfellow

Galley

teamlouish

please try to avoid citing "popular" but misguided references (in this case, the McDonald's coffee burn lawsuit) without first actually reading up on it.

The actual facts of the case were as follows, and the award was certainly justified:

On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a 79-year-old woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico, ordered a 49-cent cup of coffee from the drive-thru of a local McDonald's restaurant. Liebeck was in the passenger's seat of her Ford Probe, and her grandson Chris parked the car so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. She placed the coffee cup between her knees and pulled the far side of the lid toward her to remove it. In the process, she spilled the entire cup of coffee on her lap.

Liebeck was wearing cotton sweatpants; they absorbed the coffee and held it against her skin as she sat in the puddle of hot liquid for over 90 seconds, scalding her thighs, buttocks, and groin. Liebeck was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed.

Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US$20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck obtained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in a New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured." McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.

Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.

McDonald's refused to settle perhaps because, though there had been numerous lawsuits alleging that hot coffee was "defectively manufactured," courts had consistently dismissed the cases before trial on the grounds that coffee burns were an open and obvious danger.

During the case, Liebeck's attorneys discovered that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190 degrees Fahrenheit (82-88 degrees Celsius). At that temperature, the coffee would cause a third-degree burn in two to seven seconds. Stella Liebeck's attorney argued that coffee should never be served hotter than 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius), and that a number of other establishments served coffee at a substantially lower temperature than McDonald's.

Liebeck's lawyers presented the jury with evidence that 180 degree coffee like that McDonald's served may produce third-degree burns (where skin grafting is necessary) in about 12 to 15 seconds (as a reference, the boiling point of water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit). Lowering the temperature to 160 degrees Fahrenheit would increase the time for the coffee to produce such a burn to 20 seconds.

Liebeck's attorneys argued that these extra seconds could provide adequate time to remove the coffee from exposed skin, thereby preventing many burns. McDonald's reason for serving such hot coffee in its drive-through windows was that, because those who purchased the coffee typically wanted to drive a distance with the coffee, the high initial temperature would keep the coffee hot during the trip.

Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burnt by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.

yankinsydney

lhsonic

Are you still using an original Motorola StarTAC or something? Nickel Cadmium batteries have been obsolete for years.

NiCd batteries are the ones with significant memory effect problems. Newer Nickel Metal Hydride batteries have very little memory effect.

Lithium Ion and Lithium Ion Polymer batteries, as used in modern laptops and cellphones, have no memory effect. There is zero benefit to a full discharge. The same is also true of lead acid batteries.

Given how little you know about battery technology, I'll refrain from further comment on your specious "Apple batteries are known to suck" comment; you've done a good job demonstrating how much, or how little, you know.

gopi

PhotoMan

Anyway, it is not a lawyers job to decide the frivolity of a complaint. They are presented with a complaint and if it has legal merit they will proceed with the case. They are hired guns really. They don't care what the complaint is, nor should they be required to, as long as it makes legal sense. Everyone blames the lawyers for the crazy lawsuits, but they are just doing their jobs. We should put the blame in its rightful place, with the idiots who take these silly, money wasting issues to the lawyers in the first place.

nobodyzhome

paul

jebworks

jebworks

Bape

Apple likes to control the entire life cycle of their products. They don't want commoners like us sticking our grubby little fingers in their precious devices and messing things up because they know they will be the ones blamed for any problems that may arise. They want their products to be maintenance free and the best way to do that is to seal it up.

Besides, adding a battery-release button would give button-phobic Jobs the willies.

David C

PS...Im Quitting this site, because I wont let Gawker.com have access to my computer, Just so I can post...

ECAsh

The initial lawsuits against Apple for first generation iPod batter failures had a bit more merit, and since that time technology has improved and so has Apple's disclosure of battery limitations. There are also DIY kits available for battery replacement: I am sure these will come around once it is reasonable that batteries would by dying.

I hope the person filing this suit has it thrown right back at him, with court charges levied.

Copychief

This guy is a moron, no doubt about it, but given that battery life is a major issue for a lot of devices (laptops, media players, phones, etc.), you'd think Apple would have done a little better job of either putting in a better battery or making the batteries replacable. This is especially true given the level of fanatacism that many Apple fans achieve.

bigvince1981

sumocat

"There are loads of people that will testify to the endurance of iPod batteries, yet you still refuse to buy one because you can't change it. Who's being ignorant?"

Stop being a fanboy, apple batteries are notorious for having a low charge, need I mention the fiasco with the laptop batteries? You charge them all the time, and its going to die. People dont wait for the battery to fully drain before re-charging them and with that it makes a piss poor battery life even worse.

"Besides, changing it really isn't that much of a hassle. Even in Norway it's a relatively straightforward task to find someone who'll change it for you (should it be necessary)."

Its a big deal if I have to go without my MP3 player for a few weeks, even bigger deal if you have to lose your phone, even if its just for a few days.

elister

Jesus Diaz

and like the poster abouve me, hell you can always return it if you do not like it...sounds like he should return the iphone and get a life

corhou99

Porque les pones attencion, si ya sabes que de cualquiera manera van ha encontrar algo de que @h!ngar

YankeeFan

While he's at it, he should add in another page to the suit suing for compensation because he has to use electricity to charge the battery, apple never told me that.

excaza

And it's common knowledge that most apple products do not include a user-replaceable battery, so what exactly is the issue here?

excaza

DeadPlasmaCell

"...ill never refer apple products to family or friends."

Do you like having to help your family/friends with IT problems all the time?

sicboater

There are loads of people that will testify to the endurance of iPod batteries, yet you still refuse to buy one because you can't change it. Who's being ignorant?

Besides, changing it really isn't that much of a hassle. Even in Norway it's a relatively straightforward task to find someone who'll change it for you (should it be necessary).

My 16-18 months old iPod 5G (Video) has been used A LOT during that period, yet still I don't notice any considerable reduction in capacity.

digidandy

Dont like it, Dont buy it.

Exactly, this is why i'll never buy an apple product (the battery thing). And why ill never refer apple products to family or friends.

Aint word of mouth great?

elister

Yeah the only people who dont know about this, would probably be non-apple fanatics.

elister

oat

bald_gye

fftang

Collins1990

sicboater

Real Aler

It's a feature of the product, not a design defect. Don't like it, don't buy it. Apple's been clear on this - the iPod battery isn't replacable either so we all know their mind set on this. These are disposable products - average use by consumers is 2 years so having the battery last a little bit longer than this is an obvious design decision.

lschofield

daveedo

ikelleigh

Seems to me he's suing the company because the device is doing exactly what they claimed it would do / built how they said it was built. Sucks for him if he doesn't like it.

Geisrud

Have you seen how thin the sony ericsson w880i is (9.4mm)? you can still change the battery outta that, vs. the iphone (11.6). Seriously, what is apples big excuse?

djfoxx64

mcclurem

djfoxx64

GottaGo

I've been in the business world for approaching twelve years. Over this relatively short span, I've witnessed a distinct downward trend in the ability of "educated" people to communicate clearly and accurately. We all laugh at the "Chinglish" grammar all over the various user manuals for electronics we buy (especially of the low-end variety), but keep in mind that these are products of folks whose primary language is not English (either that or Babelfish).

Discounting Anfield's post by intimating that it's OK because it's just a blog completely discounts the importance of blogs today. Look at the subject matter experts that are used by major news organizations like CNN these days. Who are they? More often than not, they're bloggers. Blogs are quickly changing the way we get information, as I'm sure everyone here agrees. We should, therefore, expect the same level of professionalism from these "new journalists" as we do of the old guard.

Have you seen Idiocracy? At the rate we're devolving, it could happen ;-)

Brian B

My friend has the iPhone and I've used it. Battery life is an issue and a back up would be nice about once a month for the average user. Having the phone small is nice every time you slip it into your pocket. The trade off seems well worth it to me. The phone basically rocks and makes all others seem lame (I had the Treo for a while, it doesn't stack up to the iPhone). I probably won't get it because I have a blackberry for work, but that (and AT&T's service) is pretty much the only reason I'm not getting it.

TallManNY

LillieDesigns

delt23

The reason I toss that out there is because we have had hundreds of smart phones (primarily Treo devices) through our office, and replacing the battery is very common. When looking at the battery type in the iPhone it is identical to what everyone else is using. So, based on that, we can assume that the iPhone battery life will last a similar amount of time. How long is that?

(Wait for it) .. About a year.

And while I am completely disgusted with the lawsuit, the fact remains that Steve Jobs made a mistake not allowing the battery to be user replaceable. Hell, he soldered the damn thing down, didn't he? Sounds like they wanted to make the replacement process as difficult as possible. So, yes, if we are handing out idiot scores, the folks filing the lawsuit get a few points, but so does Apple.

Monty

ortuno2k

akira_santiago

I am not, however, a lawyer in Illinois. If someone made an error like writing "it's" instead of "its" (and the rest of big errors in the lawsuiT), they won't allow him/her to be a lawyer in my country.

@GOTTAGO: It's uploading as I write these lines.

Jesus Diaz

Built in batteries are so 20th century.

BayTraveler

NZRUSS

QWERTYthon

xanderbeedle

Papercutninja

GottaGo

1) "First iPhone Class-Action Suite" -- it's "suit", not "suite". A "suite" is a collection of office furniture, or a larger hotel room, or a collection of sofware. You are looking for "suit", as in "lawsuit".

2) "Putting aside that this guy's lawyers grammar is worse than mine" -- oh, much hilarity here Jesus, as you clearly mean "lawyer's", being the possesive form, rather than the plural.

Advice -- stick to reporting on USB gadgets rather than mocking others.

Oh yes, and this lawsuit is stupid. With that, I agree.

anfield

Donald_Igwebuike

In short, this guy's either a jerk or a moron (maybe both).

ThunderSaid

That said, I wish I could replace the battery in my iPhone. I used to keep a spare for my Treo in my briefcase all the time. It came in handy more than a few times when I needed to use the phone a lot during a day. The good news is that tons of people have iPod chargers and so its not too hard to find a place to juice up the iPhone.

Tek Elements

You don't need to be able to spell correctly. You don't need to follow established rules of grammar.
You can lie in your complaint ("undisclosed to the public" before the launch???).

As long as you can pony up the filing fee, you can sue whoever, for whatever, lie up the wazoo, and just keep your fingers crossed that the court will eventually certify your class and you can cash in. . .

This guy obviously is Pro Per . ..

GottaGo

urban_ninjya