The $54 Million Laptop 502
Stanislav_J writes "It happens to the best of us: you drop off your laptop at the local branch of some Super Mega Electronics McStore, go to pick it up, and they can't find it. Lost, gone, kaput — probably sucked into a black hole and now breeding with lost airline luggage. It would make any of us mad, but Raelyn Campbell of Washington, D.C. isn't just mad — she's $54 million mad. That's how much she is asking from Best Buy in a lawsuit that seeks 'fair compensation for replacement of the $1,100 computer and extended warranty, plus expenses related to identity theft protection.' Best Buy claims that Ms. Campbell was offered and collected $1,110.35 as well as a $500 gift card for her inconvenience. (I guess that extra 35 cents wasn't enough to sway her.) Her blog claims that Geek Squad employees spent three months telling her different stories about where her laptop might be before finally acknowledging that it had been lost. For those who follow economic trends, this means that a laptop's worth is roughly equivalent to that of a pair of pants."
Read what she's gone through? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blogging is a creative art.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the summary didn't include (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. When the other entities mentioned lost those laptops, do you think they knew their contents? Probably not. The point is that the consumer needs to be notified immediately in case there is sensitive information on there...not lied to for months on end while some script kiddie with a part time job at Best Buy is POTENTIALLY using her SSN.
It's precisely because Best Buy didn't know what was on her computer that they're required to notify her about it.
Re:What the summary didn't include (Score:3, Insightful)
She seems to want a minimum of $100,000 according to her blog http://www.bestbuybadbuyboycott.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com] which I feel is a bit much even for what she claims to have gone through. From her blog:
Yeah, what happened sucks, but I'm of the opinion what she's asking for is still a bit unreasonable. I'm by no means an apologist for Best Buy, in fact I really dislike them, but I think 54 mil is completely ludicrous and $100,000 is a bit greedy.
Re:Somewhat justifiable (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree that replacing her lost laptop is not going to cut it, even with a 500 dollar gift certificate. If all she had was that one laptop and all her personal emails, documents and photos were on it, then she is due a -reasonable- additional amount. If her story is true, then add to that a little more for the stress and anger she must have felt while dealing with people not willing to own up to what had happened and then finding out they had been jerked around for no reason. In addition, they should pay court fees. Then you have a reasonably fair settlement. If what she says is completely true, then I would have also commended her for taking the trouble of going to court and showing companies that they cannot just lose people's belongings and then say "oops." However, since she's sueing for 54 million, I'm not quite sure she's not secretly hoping to get a rather hefty settlement that will make her very glad that they lost that laptop...
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry but suing for an incredibly large amount of money just to make a point is a bit ridiculous and when you publicly admit that you're doing it mostly out of spite, it makes you look like an ass.
I don't think it's ridiculous at all. First of all, it's working - she is getting media attention. I doubt she could have hoped for the same attention if she wanted to settle this in a small claims court (she was willing to do so at one point, but Best Buy seems to have repeatedly ignored her). Secondly, it seems to be common practice to sue for an enormous amount of money, realizing that the court will rarely ever award that much. As for being an ass, it looks like Best Buy is the one you should really accuse - they're playing all sorts of legal paperwork games, contesting every move (read her response to Best Buy's lawyer's claim that none of the defendants were served).
Not any more unrealistic than the MPAA's figures (Score:5, Insightful)
I ask because, if the courts allow the MPAA to sue kids for tens of thousands PER SONG for simply sharing a copywritten work, then why not let her sue for tens of thousands for each of HER original works? After all, her damages are much WORSE than those claimed by the music industry -- her content has been permanently destroyed/lost, while the music industry still has their content and can continue to sell it.
(Frankly, I don't think either case deserves what they're asking. Reimburse market price or some small multiple of *actual market price* as a punitive measure -- $1100 for the laptop lady. $.99 per song for the music company.)
Sum Not Outrageous (Score:1, Insightful)
It is not about compensating her loss. It is about forcing the company to change its ways. You award enough money to affect the company's bottom line, which punishes the stock holders, which puts the heat on management to stop the offending practice.
If there is not a change in practices, the clearly the award is not high enough.
So don't think of it as her getting 54 million for a laptop and aggravation, look at it as getting through to the company in the only language it understands...money.
Look at Ford and the Pinto episode. I don't think it was a high enough award. Ford should have been brought to its knees financially just to make it clear that the cost/benefit analysis of dead/burned people to lawsuit costs was waay off.
Re:Managers tell you to lie (Score:5, Insightful)
Punative (Score:4, Insightful)
It has everything to do with a refusal to acknowledge they'd lost it, making constant excuses for a long time, followed by a refusal to pay up promptly even what it was undeniable.
It was only after she threatened to sue for the large amount that they finally got around to paying the smaller amount. Until they were in danger, they weren't in any hurry to deal with it.
There's often minimal incentive to avoid repeating the mistake if all you ever have to pay is actual physical cost, ignoring value of lost data, and you can get away with postponing making that payment, requiring endless forms of validation, follow up calls where they sit on hold for hours, etc. until they give up.
The idea of punative damages is that it's accepted that a bare minimum effort doesn't come close to being adequate and a dramatically higher cost is required to spur them in to acting in the way they knew they should have in the first place.
If BestBuy had got on and acknowledge the loss, promptly paying up, they likely wouldn't be facing this. Instead, their responding only when threatened with large punative damages, demonstrated that that's exactly what's necessary to get them to truly fulfill their obligations.
Had she asked for millions the instant they lost it, she'd get laughed out of court. That they demonstrated a complete unwillingness to address the issue until they were faced with that kind of a threat is going to get noted in a court case.
She'll unlikely see the $50m+. She'll be lucky if she sees $5m that gets reduced to $500k on appeal. But the pain of facing that, getting lawyers involved and all the rest of it is going to make an impression on BB policy for the future far more than any number of angry letters will.
Re:What the summary didn't include (Score:5, Insightful)
While $100,000 is more than enough to *give to her*, I'm not sure it's anywhere near enough to be *taken from them*.
Re:FTA: (Score:5, Insightful)
A) It was left at a trusted* location, hence where it was was assumed to be known.
B) It wasn't stolen, persay. Officially, it was lost.
C) It took three months for Best Buy to fess up to losing it.
Normally when your laptop gets stolen from you, you have a pretty good idea when that happens, I would wager within 24 hours you'd know it's missing. You don't sit down at a meeting one day and realize, "Holy crap, my laptop was stolen three months ago! I better start doing something about that!"
*Let's not quibble over the definition of trusted. It was believed to be a trusted location at least, and that's what matters.
Punitive damages (Score:3, Insightful)
If you think it thru she started by being quite reasonable and not getting any response. Then the response she got was close to criminal. And now they are trying to make her the badguy. I hope BestBuy gets p0wn'd.
Re:54 million pair of pants (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Managers tell you to lie (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:She's a loon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FTA: (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take plaintiff's admission that she is attempting to use the court system as a forum rather than as a way of becoming whole, except to point out that the court should sanction her, her counsel, and the firm that counsel belongs to for filing a frivolous lawsuit and falsely representing that there is a cause of action before the court.
I realize that there was a lot of inconvenient back-and-forth between the plaintiff and defendant, and so what? When you file suit, you raise the stakes while expressly promising that you are not yanking everyone's chain. When you publicly tell people that you deliberately broke that promise and are using the suit to simply advertise your cause, then you deserve to be punished under Rule 11 (or similar State rule) by the same court you thought you would "put one over on." The court system is not a playground or a forum for plaintiff to use to "get the word out" on Best Buy.
That's what vainglorious blogs are for.
Damnit, they're right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:She's a loon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Somewhat justifiable (Score:3, Insightful)
As I said in another comment, when they claim to not be responsible for lost data, that might be true in the case of destroyed data... hard drive wipe, whatever. No way does that absolve them of lost as in negligently misplaced or stolen data.
Pervasive and systemic fraud of this nature, which I'm sure Best Buy does engage in, does occasionally result in very high punitive fines. That was the nature of the oft-cited McDonalds hot-coffee incident. I believe there was a similar case against Sears Automotive. $300 fines do not always force companies to reform abusive policies.
I love business and capitalism. Free market for the win. But that doesn't mean companies should get away without penalties when they are caught doing obviously deceptive acts.
Except.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Best Buy needs to have it's ass handed to them in order to get this crap to stop and force them to take more stringent security measures. I watch the Geek Squad work on machines, totally disobeying EVERY SINGLE ESD PROCEDURE and not even wearing ESD straps. I won't work at a Besy Buy purely for professional and ethical reasons due to what I have personally witnessed and experienced.
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the summary didn't include (Score:3, Insightful)
What a crappy piece of reporting (Score:5, Insightful)
For example:
"Campbell, who could not be reached Tuesday," - Campbell's whole point of this is to get exposure. I seriously doubt she intentionally avoided the call. How long did Jackie Crosby give Ms Campbell to reply? 10 minutes?
"Best Buy Spokeswoman said Campbell was offered and collected $1110.35" if you read Ms Campbell's story BB deposited this straight into her credit card account w/o prior discussion. Would have been nice if Ms Crosby mentioned this fact in her news story.
"Melissa Ngo, senior counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C.,
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:I didn't miss anything. Read the law. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:She's a loon. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Move along, nothing to see here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:3, Insightful)
"McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media."
Which seems to reinforce the GP's assertion that the original judgment was unreasonable.
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Fact: McDonalds did not have the coffee 'too hot':
The National Coffee Association recommends coffee be brewed at "between 195-205 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal extraction" and drunk "immediately". If not drunk immediately, it should be "maintained at 180-185 degrees Fahrenheit." Coffee makers for your HOME brew at a water temp of 200+ degrees.
McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation -
Fact: 700 cases, in the last 10 years, nationwide. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?
McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
Appeal to Emotion. It is irrelevent how severe her injuries were.
McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
Fact: McDonalds coffee cups have ALWAYS had a "Caution: Hot" warning on them.
McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company
The jury found for the poor little old lady with the great big, painful burns. It's called basign their decision on their Emotions instead fo the facts.
McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants
Wrong, wrong wrong.
http://www.coffeeserviceplus.com/perfect-cup.html [coffeeserviceplus.com]
"Brewing temperature should be 195 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit. "
http://www.auniquecoffeeservice.com/brewingsystems.html [auniquecoffeeservice.com]
"205 F Brewing Temperature "
http://www.morekitchenappliances.com/asp/show_detail.asp?sku=ZOJ1066&PiID=2259383&refid=MP108-ZOJ1066_2259383#ProdDetails [morekitche...iances.com]
"Heat Retention*: 169F at 10 hrs./136F at 24 hrs.
*Rating is based on water at a starting temperature of 203F (95C) at a room temperature of 68F (20C) "
http://www.bunn.com/retail/dos_donts.html [bunn.com]
Do: "us[e] a brewer that keeps water at 200 Fahrenheit (the ideal temperature) "
also
Don't: "Re-heat for serving any coffee with a temperature below 175 F "
http://www.homeclick.com/1/1/13032-velox-travel-coffee-maker-yellow-7027y.html [homeclick.com]
"Just plug in and the coffee automatically dispenses at the correct 180 degree temperature"
Do I need to continue???? All these references show that the 'proper' temp for brewing coffee is around 200 degrees. Several references show that the coffee should be served hot, around 180-190 degrees (ie: Bunn says if it's below 175 degrees, it is too cold).
Re:No it's not. (Score:2, Insightful)
Instead, what did they do? They lied about it. Again and again and again.
That is completely unacceptable.
Re:RTFL! Really. Read it. Here, let me help you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, no, it says "person or business." Which includes the woman who lost her laptop, since she's a person.
There's simply nothing in the statue that appears to let BB off the hook, here, which is why even the local AG thinks they're not off the hook.
Obviously BB has liability here. I simply can't understand how you're reading the statute to apply only to data BB personally maintains; that's not what it says at all. BB's actions allowed "breach of the security of the system", period. It's those actions that expose them to liability, regardless of who was "maintaining" the data.
Try not just reading the part that you bolded. If you read the entire paragraph, as you seem loathe to do, it's obvious that it doesn't define liability, nor restrict it only to data BB personally maintains. It's simply a definition of the term "breach of the security of a system", and it's obvious that happened here. Because it happened by BB's actions, they're the ones who are liable.
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite the litigation culture, most people accept that spilling your coffee is *your* accident - unless they've served boiling hot coffee to a 3 year old, it's an unfortunate accident for which no one should be liable.
Re:Tenleytown Best Buy! (Score:3, Insightful)
"National Coffee Association" my achin' ass. Anyone claiming no liquid that won't burn your skin is worth putting in your mouth is, by definition, a tit.
another article suggests industry standard is 160 to 185 degrees...in the early 1990's home coffeemakers only brewed up to 130-140 degrees...Stella Liebeck suffered terrible third-degree burns
Whether or not you have teflon lips that allow you to drink liquids at the "expert-recommended" just-shy-of-boiling, only an idiot would suggest McDonald's coffee and proper brew temperature have anything to do with each other.
McDonald's took responsibility when one of its employees spilled coffee on a customer and settled cases of burns from such spills
Either this guy is the clumsiest burger-flipper in world history, or the article's authors have an axe to grind.