subject: Settlements Could Raise the Prices of Personal Computers [print this page] A new and ingenious plan to earn from the laptop computer industry was devised by a Texas personal injury lawyer. You can file a lawsuit for consumers who complain about a problem that does not exist. Don't laugh, especially if you're in the market for a laptop computer. Price increases may come out of the lawsuits that have been filed against five other companies.
When a lawyer filed a $9 billion lawsuit against a Japanese appliance maker, he was able to get from the company a settlement of $2 billion. Since the risk of losing more money was great if they tried to battle the lawsuit, the company decided on a settlement.
As a result, he and a handful of lawyers will diwy up $147 million in contingency fees. The company distributed discount coupons and gave cash rebates to the million owners of their notebook computers. The filing of the lawsuit took place last March for two laptop owners.
The plaintiffs stated that the laptops they and other people owned had a glitch in the design that could cause data in their hard drive to be lost. The damages that these men claimed could be caused by the flaw did not even affect them in any way.
The manufacturer of the chip claims that no complaint had ever been filed before about this feature in the laptop pointed out as a defect. The computer maker said none of its customers ever had complained until last March when the two lawyers marched into the courtroom. Nothing in the company's extensive tests revealed a loss of data due to this flaw.
Had the Japanese computer maker lost the jury trial, they would have spent more than 9$ billion. It's like throwing blood soaked meat into the Gulf of Mexico, claimed legal observers who comment on the move of the company to surrender. The sound of the splash did not even disappear yet, but the sharks were already there. Scores of personal injury lawyers, including a number from Texas, immediately filed copycat class action lawsuits against five other laptop computer manufacturers that use or may have used the NEC floppy control chip.
These lawsuits are causing these businesses to consider layoffs. Situations may become even worse. One financial analyst from New York says that these billion dollar settlements would lead to soaring prices of personal computers. According to economists, low inflation can somehow be traced the low computer prices, explaining the prosperity of the United States for the past two decades.
Those computers which cost thousands of dollars 20 years ago don't work as well as the computers of today which cost only a few hundred dollars. If the most avaricious elements of the plaintiffs bar manage to bully other laptop manufacturers into submission as they did this Japanese manufacturer, computer prices are likely to skyrocket. This is not regarded as good news for those who cannot afford it.
Settlements Could Raise the Prices of Personal Computers
