Kotaku is reporting that the law firm Green Welling LLP has filed "a nationwide class action lawsuit on behalf of the owners of the Nintendo Wii against Nintendo of America, Inc." Why you may ask?

"The class action lawsuit seeks to enjoin Nintendo from continuing its unfair or deceptive business practices as it relates to the Nintendo Wii.The lawsuit also seeks an injunction that requires Nintendo to correct the defect in the Wii remote and to provide a refund to the purchaser or to replace the defective Wii remote with a Wii remote that functions as it is warranted and intended."

Seems pretty lame to me. While Duey, Cheatum and Howe LLC doesn't explicitly state the Wii mote strap as defective that is my guess. Nintendo has already offered the replace the strap free of charge. I cannot imagine what these lawyers are trying to pull.

ambulance chasers, or in this case, exploitation of the rift between competing console companies.

Makes ya wonder if Sony perhaps set up a tiny corporation with an unrevealing name to hire the lawyers to put pressure on Nintendo.

I know I know, that's a stretch but so is the lawsuit.

You never know with Sony. =P

"... unfair or deceptive business practices..."? "... correct the defect in the Wii remote..."?

The hell?

On a "totally unrelated topic", remember when those people tried to sue McDonald's because the food made them fat?

I think I'm going to file a suit against mobygames. My wrists hurt from writting reviews and my submitted trivia for Ultimate Wizardry Archives hasn't been approved yet. This led to a severe blow in my self confidence resulting in a lasting depression that has left me less than functional. I'm asking for long term disability and punitive damages as well.

However, I'm not an unreasonable person. If flipkin gave me his xbox 360, I'll drop the case. At least then I'll have a console to play while I sit at home having been mentally and physically ruined by mobygames.

The thing is, with the "right" lawyer and the "wrong" judge, you could potentially win that case.

I just made myself sad...

Shoot all lawyers!!!

*Bang*

**falls down and dies**

Everyone's a fucking victim in today's society.

Im so tired of this. Get of your asses and stop acting like babies people!

I have gotten so sick of all the lawsuits in the past decade or so. Lawsuits have been out of control ever since McDonalds was sued because an old lady burned herself with her coffee -- I mean, come on!! Coffee is SUPPOSED to be hot.

Should people really be allowed to sue a company because the person has no common sense or is just plain stupid?

I heard from someone who works in insurance about a family who sued the makers of the truck cap (over the bed of the pickup truck) because they had their kids riding in the bed without any kind of restraints and got in an accident that killed the kids. (might only have been one kid...) They won the case. In what way is the truck cap maker responsible for someone dying from not be buckled up inside the truck, but instead being in the bed of the truck? I admit that I've sat in the backs of trucks a lot when I was younger, but if something happened to me, it wouldn't be the fault of the truck maker or the truck cap maker. Yes, it's sad that a child died, but it is the [i]parents'[/i] fault.

Anyhow, I'd love a new law...

If someone is injured or killed due to stupidity or having no common sense, no one can sue for it.

Obviously, that would leave loop holes to prevent legitimate lawsuits, but it was meant as an example and not a final version of such a law. :)

I don't disagree, but it's really up to a court to decide if the lawsuit is legitimate or not. That's the role of the court, and in most cases it would be difficult to determine the legitimacy without a trial.

Also there are different kinds of lawsuits. Some may ask that an action be taken, a company to change a specific policy, or for a local law to be upheld or overturned. Not all lawsuits are in pursuit of money, at least not for the plaintiffs. The lawyers most certainly wouldn't be present without some kind of compensation :)

True, yet a lot of these types of cases make trial and WIN. If someone sues for a something because they were stupid and messed up, there isn't any good reason they should win. Yet they win because they have a good lawyer and companies would rather just pay and be done with it than to fight it out.




True, but the majority of the "bad" lawsuits are for money. Usually, if money isn't involved in the lawsuit, it's at least semi-legitimate.

20 years ago, if someone chopped their finger off because they tried to clean grass out of under a lawnmower while it was running, everyone would call the person an idiot for being so stupid and that would be the end of it. Today, if someone did that and the lawnmower didn't have a clear label warning not to do that (and probably even if it does have one), the person can sue and win a ton of money. It's rediculous.

Not true Riamus, for countries that have the "common law system" (ie. United States) where precedent becomes law, companies WILL fight, even for every single case, because if there is a court ruling where they will lose, you can imagine the big bucks. Not that the big bucks is much compared to listening to the constant whining of the stockholders.




I agree. But the thing is, that is the way law (in general) and Consumer Protection Law (spesifically) is by nature. Ironically, the law as we know it protects your philosophical right to be an imbecile: well its funny once in awhile, but every time tends to get ridiciously irritating.

The "check-and-balance idea" where the law provides safe guards and protection for the consumer against the merchant in practice has gone way out of hand, since "common sense" in legal practice is no longer identified as a legal term...nor with much success. But blame that on phsycologists.

Although this may sound a bit subjective, especially in reference to my occupation, lawyers can only act (and ONLY act) within the boundries of the law. Asking lawyers to be "humane" is technically a legal impossibilty. :)

That's because us lawyers work for the devil. Lawyers, politicians, whores and Doom fans. :p

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But put it this way. At least now people in the western hemisphere have an idea on how the law works. Which is more than I can say from 3rd world countries where the law isn't so certain in outcome.

saying that lawyers can only act within the law is really a non-sequitur. This assumes that the law is established in a fair manner, and therefore anyone acting within the law is justified in their actions. Having the potential to change, update, repeal, or provide exception for various laws makes acting within the law irrelevant as the boundaries of legal restriction constantly change. Aside from any of that, as long as a judge agrees with and upholds the actions of an attorney, almost anything is possible (I'm talking about US civil laws here).

Nevertheless, lawyers (like people of any other profession) have been known to break laws, confabulate cases, and indoctrinate witnesses. There isn't some magical bond that prevents a lawyer from not acting in accordance with law.

Yes, but lawyers (like any other profession) also knows, you aren't breaking the law...until you get caught.

http://www.overlawyered.com, a fun site to read... up until the point where you start getting depressed by the legal manuverings of the world.


Won't help for lawsuits, but you can always try to nominate them for the Darwin Awards... might as well make thyese people infamous and give everyone a good laugh... even if they/their families do walk away from the bank in the meantime.

Money, of course. You only have to read about 5 or 6 case studies before it's obvious that the only people who benefit from class action lawsuits are lawyers. The defendant is sacked for millions; the plaintiffs get less than $10 each; the lawyers get a few million. It's depressing.

I think there would be a very simple idea to get rid of most of these trials: apart from compensatio to real damage, the money is paid to the state. So if some old lady burns herself with coffee, she gets money to buy new pants, her medical bill is paid for and she gets a small compensation for pain suffered. The rest of the money that the evil multi-corporation has to pay is a fine paid to the state.

No more court lottery.

Good, except when it comes to death or dismemberment or similar things... how much should be given for that kind of pain?

How do insurance companies deal with them?

Usually by paying up to a set limit based on what is paid for the insurance.

Take car insurance as just one example. In the US, you can choose how much to insure your car against bodily injury and other things. The insurance company will only pay up to that amount and not more. And to have a higher amount, you have to pay more.

Well, sort of.

In regards to personal injury protection, this is usually a fixed amount (around $1500). You either have it or you don't.

Medical Payments is the same type of coverage, usually a fixed amount that helps pay medical expenses regardless of which party is at fault.

Uninsured/Underinsured provides for protection IF you're not at fault in the accident and the other party doesn't have insurance or doesn't have enough liability coverage to cover damages. This amount is usually adjustable but does not by default insure you against damages.

Liability as they say, is to 'protect the other guy'. This isn't true. Liability insurance protects your assets. If you cause damage to another party, you are responsible for those damages. Liability insurance serves to protect your assets from lawsuits; in other words, it pays so you don't have to. You can adjust levels of liability protection and there is a state minimum (different in each state).

Comprehensive and Collision protect against property damage regardless of which party is at fault. The property is covered up to the cash value of the vehicle (not always actual value). For unique, rare, or otherwise unlisted vehicles, you are covered by a stated amount of the property. A Model T might not be listed, so you claim the value of the vehicle and pay for coverage based on the amount you want to insure. This is the only scenario I can think of where you insure your car based on the value that you select, and pay accordingly.

When you choose to insure your car, they will put in default values for many of the areas of coverage. However, you can increase those values. I think the default here is 20,000/100,000 for one of the areas (I forget which ... maybe personal injury or something ... I don't have my insurance printout handy to look at), but you can increase that to about triple. Increasing it will increase your insurance premium as well.

Right but you don't decide how much to insure your car for unless it's a stated amount.

I know too that every state is different, so if you're able to select a scalable personal injury protection that's the exception rather than the rule. I'm willing to bet however that the coverage you're referring to here is liability. Coverage listed as 20,000/100,000 doesn't sound like personal injury protection.

In TX for example, the state minimum is 20/40/15. Which is liability coverage for damage you cause up to 20k per person for medical, 40k maximum per accident, 15k property damage. Here you are selecting how much liability coverage you have, for damage that you cause to others, not the amount that you're insuring your own property or injury for.

That could be it. However, it is still something you decide on and your decision affects the amount you pay.

I think it depends on that state in question. If a business hurts an individual, how is the state a victim? I mean I'm sure you could provide some example, but the problem I have is that money is already mismanaged and misused in my country.

I have no problem paying taxes, even high taxes. I have a problem with how the money is spent. If the goal is to prevent ridiculous lawsuits, then I'd suggest the alternative of restricting the amount of damages to be awarded for certain types of cases.

Nevertheless, the state can collect money from a business (or individual) for an illegal act or violation of some sort. If an individual brings a company to trial, the individual should get the money. If the state brings the company to trial, the state should get the money.

The money paid is not for damage done in that case, just a penalty so that the company puts it's act together in the future.


Problem with that is that then the big companies wouldn't care about them. It would be small change.

That's punitive damages not actual damage.


Could be, but sometimes bad publicity has it's own costs and incentives.

You're essentially giving the state an incentive to encourage more of these trials. How is that a good thing?

State doesn't or shouldn't have an incentive. The trouble is the current US system encourages people to sue because they just might get lucky and become millionaires overnight. Doesn't matter if you have to admit you were an idiot as long as your lawyer (who you don't have to pay as he gets his slice of the proceedings) can argue that that not everything was explained in the manual ("do not try to dry your cat in the microwave").

This is a no risk, high reward scheme.

And the system I described works here.

This reminds me of a bag of salted pistachios I've bought yesterday: "you are advised to remove the shell before consuming the product". OH REALY?

The system doesn't encourage lawsuits. As a matter of fact when filing a lawsuit there are countless technicalities and barriers to deal with. Have you ever filed a lawsuit against someone/some company? I have, and I can tell you it's endless bureaucracy. To add to that, even if you win the case it can be years before you get the money (if you get it at all). There are appeals that can be filed, lengthy time limits imposed by the courts, not to mention that if someone flat out refuses to pay often you have to go back to court and deal with the same barriers you did before, wait months or years, and even then many times the best you can get is a judgement in your favor that cannot force someone to pay. After you've done all of that, you might be able to get a writ of execution which you will have to wait in line, and then pay for out of pocket.

The amount of paperwork is daunting, the time frame for getting the case in front of a court is absolutely absurd. The money it costs is ridiculous. The exception is small claims court, and the maximum limit for suits in those courts is $5,000.

To the contrary, the state jumps through hoops to try to avoid hearing the case.

Oh America. Your greed is so funny.

Seriously though, these idiots have NO CASE. Nintendo willfully replaced the straps. Nintendo can't be held responsible because the players didn't follow the instructions to the letter - namely, HOLD ON TO THE FRAGGIN WIIMOTE ALL THE TIME AND NEVER LET IT GO WHILE PLAYING.

God.

Technically those idiots really don't have a case, unless they're trying to prove that Nintendo's disclamer of "Not letting go" in the end-user license agreement does not apply, since to a certain extent it is [1] physically impossible to do so, [2] the straps clearly identify a defective product which may effectively cause bodily harm without prior intention.

Hmm, come to think of it, they do have a case.