October 3, 2007 8:00 AM PDT
Making sense of the million-dollar iPhone lawsuit
When Apple announced that it was dropping the price of the iPhone by $200, some jumped for joy and immediately headed out to their nearest Apple store. For others--early adopters who had already purchased Apple's gadget--the price drop was nothing short of a slap in the face. Some were satisfied when Steve Jobs said that these loyal customers would be provided a $100 credit toward their next Apple purchase, but many felt the credit didn't suffice. One of these unhappy shoppers has filed a lawsuit against Apple to the tune of $1 million dollars.
It's unclear how the litigant, Dongmei Li, plans to justify a million dollars in damages over a $200 price drop, but Li's argument is that "the price reduction injured early purchasers like herself because they cannot resell the product for the same profit as those who bought the cell phone following the price cut," according to CNN's account. So I guess that comes out to $200 in actual losses and $999,800 in pain and suffering.
Frivolous lawsuits are nothing new; some have even won in court. Readers may recall how a a 70 year-old woman was awarded a $2.7 million dollar judgment after spilling scalding hot McDonalds coffee on herself. Of course, she did receive 3rd-degree burns over 6 percent of her body and to the best of my knowledge Li only suffered through the embarrassment of spending more money than she would've had she waited patiently. Perhaps she'll soon file a suit against CNN for bringing attention to her petty suit. I know I'd deal with far more harassment about suing Apple than I would for paying too much for my chic cell phone.
Everyone knows that technology drops in price over time. Sure, it's not every day that a gadget's price is slashed by 40 percent in only two months, but companies are generally allowed to set their own prices and to change them at will. If six months had transpired before the Apple lowered the price of the
iPhone would Li still be suing? What if a year had gone by?
While those early adopters that got burned when Apple dropped its price might be tempted to root for Li, it's actually everyone else who would suffer should she be successful in court. If lowering prices were made illegal, just think about how much more you'd pay for everything. Older model computers would still be just as expensive as the latest offerings, shopping malls would have to abandon sales events and even the local grocery store would be prohibited having a special on canned corn.
Sure, Li would be a million dollars richer but how much poorer would you be? I wouldn't worry to much about it though -- I've got a suspicion Dongmei Li doesn't have a chance in hell of winning this one.
Josh Wolf is a journalist, an activist, and a life-long troublemaker. Having spent 226 days in jail to protect his work product, he knows first hand that a free press doesn't come cheap. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET.
When the rage and insult took control over me, I was thinking about suing KFC for one million dollars :D, a pretty handsome amount of money at this part of the world. Then I got settled down, referred my other meals from different restaurants, especially the lousy ones which are scattered around my work place, which are affordable etc. All of a sudden I realized those sorry gestures were more than sufficient to settle the anger I felt towards KFC. I am sure I will never go and sue one of those lousy restaurants nearby my workplace just for one of the reasons I said above (poorly fried chicken...)
I think, if I had gone ahead and sued KFC for what I experienced, there was a chance to win that one million dollar, which right now I consider as an indirect way to make money by stealing or robbery against a ?crime? which was just ignorable or could be forgiven once after the counter staff apologized and assured won't be repeated.
A nice post buddy
If a consumer is allowed to sue a company on those grounds, then by the same logic a company should be allowed to sue past customers for paying too little for their products if the company in the future decides to raise the price of those products.
Whose choice was it to buy the product at the initial price? The consumer made that decision. It is unreasonable to pass blame onto the company for the consumer's decision to buy a product at a certain price. The consumer here is not a victim of anything.
What is sad is that people even try to launch such lawsuits, and what is even more sad is that certain judges (not all judges) would give any time or consideration to such lawsuits.