Screw you, and your damn settlement!

The BBQ Pit
1

I received a letter a few days back describing a class action settlement that I can get in on. First, allow me to describe the situation.

About a year and a half ago, Whirpool announced a recall of a particular type of “over the stove” microwave ovens. Because of a faulty design, grease could accumulate and become a fire hazard. Whirlpool suggested stopping use of the unit until a repair was completed. Whirlpool offered the following:

  1. Free in home repair (parts and labor) scheduled with a local authorized repair center
  2. Extended 1 year warranty from date of repair
    3) Reimbursement of your expenses to buy a countertop unit for use until the repair is complete

I don’t know about you, but I consider this offer to be quite fair, and was very surprised to find out that Whirlpool had to settle an additional suit in response to this situation. It seems that some people who failed to take advantage of #3 above are unhappy that they didn’t get to use their microwave for a month or so while it was waiting to get repaired. God fucking forbid that you are denied the use of a microwave for a little while without being able to sue someone. :rolleyes:

Since I did not take advantage of #3 (no space for a countertop unit), I get notice that I can be part of this class action, which was settled out of court, I think, the court is still involved in approving the settlement. I (and every other non-lawyer in the deal) am eligible to receive the princely sum of $7.50, maximum. The Class Counsel, OTOH, has graciously agreed to not petition the court for fees and expenses in excess of $2,392,371, 30% of the $7,974,570 Settlement Fund.

Now to the rant… it wasn’t good enough that they were going to buy you a new fucking microwave??? You have to sue them to get a piddling $7.50 and expose this company to potentially $8 million of various expenses. Do you know how much $8M buys? It can put a crew of 10 people at work for almost a decade, including all benefits and everything. Instead of a manufacturing company putting people to work making product, they’re hiring lawyers and administrators and paying these shysters we have as Class Counsel.

They already lost their shirts on this screw up, each repair, done at your home, took a team of 2 people almost an hour to do. They had to advertise the recall, schedule the repairs, distribute the parts, and offered to spend about $100 per person to get them a new countertop microwave. All that to fix a problem with a <$400 product.

Class Counsel (I should name you, but won’t), you should be ashamed of yourselves, you are the reason that so many people hate lawyers. I know damn well that YOU are the only real reason there is a suit, no normal person would bother with a suit to get $7.50. Your ridiculous lawsuits cost good companies millions of dollars they could use to build more and better products.

I am thoroughly disgusted and will not be a member of your criminal little class action. :mad:

2

sue 'em!

3

Agree with your sentiments, but just letting things lie doesn’t solve anything.

You should send the details to Randy Cassingham at Stella Awards ( http://www.StellaAwards.com).

He publishes a weekly e-zine about the abuses of the US legal system by such shonky lawsuits, especially class actions.

Fortune Magazine has estimated civil lawsuits soak up 2.33% of your country’s GNP. This works out at $3400 per “family of four” in increased insurance premiums and inflated prices of goods - compare this with the median federal income tax load for the same family of $4496. The rate of increase by the former means YOU will be paying more on lawsuits than income tax by 2005.

4

At least this settlement was in cash. I’ve been notified that I’ve been party to settlements where, while the lawyer was paid in cash, the members of the plaintiff class ‘won’ discount coupons to buy more of the product that was supposedly defective.

I think a simple rule that would wipe out a bunch of these essentially lawyer-driven class-action suits is if lawyers were required to take their 30% in the same form of payment that the plaintiffs received.

For instance, I got the right to assorted discounts, in the 10% range, on my next Zip drive purchase. (With CD-RW drives as cheap as they are, why I’d ever buy another Zip drive is beyond me. So my take on it was that I had won effectively zip ;), while the lawyer was getting paid in real money. But be that as it may.) If that’s what the plaintiffs get out of the suit, then the lawyers should get a whole big pile of 10%-off coupons on Zip drives. But no cash, unless the plaintiffs got cash.

5

It only took one guy about 15 minutes to fix mine. Luckily for me, I already HAD a second microwave (I had one when I bought this condo, which had the over-the-stove thing), so it wasn’t a problem for me.

And yeah, the people who thought this lawsuit was a good idea are idiots. :rolleyes:

6

In which court is this second class action pending?

I’d like to see if I know class counsel.

7

Robb, would it be appropriate to put the names here on the board? My document has the names listed, I suppose since it’s a matter of public record it’s not a big deal. I’ll check when I get home.

Morgyn, how did they fix your unit? Mine they had to take down the whole thing from the wall and take it apart on my floor. I can’t see one person doing that alone, the sucker’s heavy!

Man, how pissed would I be if I could only get coupons for more Whirlpool stuff?

8

Cheesesteak, sorry, I’m not asking for names. If you give me the name of the court I can probably find it on my own. If not, I’ll just have to wonder. :wink:

9

What chaps my ass raw is that the original recall started in October 2001. I was JUST notified about two weeks ago! WTF? What if my house had burned down?

10

Thanks for starting this thread. I too am a member of the ‘class’ and I almost wrote a expltive laced letters to the plaintiff’s lawyers telling them what a bunch of scum bags thery are.

Mine actually started to catch fire and we were about to call and complain when we got the recall notice.

These plaintiffs and lawyers are the ones choking our legal system. IMO these lawsuits aren’t about the standard argument of ‘standing up against big corporations’. This is about greedy people trying to sue a company that acted in good faith but that has big pockets.

I’m either going to exclude myself from the settlement or if they send me a check give it to charity.

11

Well, I don’t disagree with you, but also realize that the company also “thought this lawsuit was a good idea” or they wouldn’t have settled it for so much.

I don’t know that much about how many lawyer-hours it takes to defend against a baseless suit, but it’s gotta cost less than $8 million to get it through summary judgment.

Since the company settled, they obviously thought that was the cheaper way to go.

12

Why the fuck are you pissed at the lawyers when your recall notice didn’t arrive until recently? You think Whirlpool was just dying to recall/replace/repaier zillions of microwaves, but the mean old plaintiffs’ lawyers wouldn’t let them? WTF?

13

Hey, that’s a windfall! I participated in a class-action suit (I don’t even remember what it was about, it was just that I always ignore those things, and I wanted to do it this time, just to see what happened), and only got $5.30.

You lucky duck. :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Robb, the hearing will be held at the Circuit Court for Marion County, Indiana, the judge being Theodore M. Sosin.

BTW, if you own a Whirlpool, KitchenAid, or Kenmore over the range microwave, check here to see if your unit is one of the affected ones. I can’t believe so many people haven’t gotten the notice.

Opengrave, in your position, I think I’d be a bit more pissed at Whirlpool than the lawyers!

Gee, I hope this doesn’t turn into a triple post, things are a bit wonky. I also found this website for the settlement. It’s already out there, what’s the harm?