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Florida Citizens' Anti-trust Payout Dwarfed By Lawyers'
According to Robin "Roblimo" Miller's article on NewsForge, Florida residents are receiving word by electronic and postal mail about the likely outcome of that state's class action suit against Microsoft (last mentioned on Slashdot last September): the upshot is that Florida residents who purchased a Microsoft operating system or Microsoft Office would be eligible for a settlement payment (in vouchers) of $5-12; the lawyers involved are seeking $48 million in fees. The settlement terms have several interesting clauses; for instance, by accepting, you would be agreeing to "settle and release all claims, demands, actions, suits, and causes of action against Microsoft and/or its directors, officers, employees, attorneys, insurers or agents, whether known or unknown, asserted or unasserted, that any member of the Florida Settlement Class ever had, could have had, now has or hereafter can, shall or may have, relating in any way to ... any conduct, act or omission that was or could have been alleged in this case as the basis for any antitrust or unfair competition claims."
is it really worth signing your rights away for a measely $12?
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$200 million is a decently sized chunk of money, but I would have preferred to see more enforcement fo the federal anti-trust judgement and settlement. I think that would have done a lot more for a lot more consumers than paying $5-12 to a bunch of people in Florida.
Class Members will be eligible to receive a total maximum amount of $202 million in vouchers, worth $5 for each license for Microsoft MS-DOS, Windows versions 1.0 to 3.2, Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000 Professional, Word, Excel and Office software, and $12 for each license for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition that Class Members indirectly acquired in the United States between November 16, 1996 and December 31, 2002 for use in Florida
Isn't this just yet another slap on the wrist for microsoft. It just makes them use their ill gotten gains from the monopoly, which probably has earned them quite a bit in interest anyway. I have a feeling this is a bit like the previous case, give them some punishment which "looks" big but doesnt actually have any affect on them.
In theory, the idea is not to enrich the individual plaintiffs, but to make the aggregate penalty high enough to get the company's notice.
In practice, it's rarely so simple, since for a company Microsoft's size, $202 Million (which sounds like "a lot" of money to any sane person) can not only be easily written off in any year's books, but probably doesn't even amount to the aggregate interest they earned on the licensing of the products in question.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Too many lawyer jokes can be inserted here.
Omnis amans amens
Is there a way to file suit against class action lawyers for abusing their clients?
Exactly how were these people abused the laywers? None of of the plaintiffs put any money towards the expense of filing and prosecuting the case. They merely signed their names to the action.
If they weren't satisfied with the potential payout or the lawyer's cut, they were more than free to not participate. They were also free to put hundreds of thousands of their own dollars towards their own suit.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
One way to stop these predatory lawsuits is to require that the lawyers get paid in coupons when the class members settlement is in coupons.
6 a
See http://overlawyered.com/archives/01/mar2.html#031
If you don't like the payout, don't accept. Then pursue your own case by putting hundreds of thousands of your own dollars where your mouth is.
Most people won't, of course.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Did people expect Microsoft to buy them a new car? How about a new house? It's a measly computer program, when all is said and done.
They're paying out $202 million. Admittedly, Microsoft still has plenty left over, but I'm dead certain they didn't want to pay even THAT much.
As for the attorney's fees, again, why should these people work for free? Can you imagine the expense involved in something as simple as photocopying the documents required in this case? It's enormously expensive to run a lawsuit of this magnitude; the lawyers deserve to get paid.
I'm not saying a few of the key partners aren't going to get well off this case, but this is hardly the miscarriage of justice, screw-the-public outcome that seems to be the prevailing opinion here.
Oh wait, I forgot - this is Slashdot, where EVERYTHING Microsoft does is never good enough.
The settlement terms have several interesting clauses; for instance, by accepting, you would be agreeing to "settle and release all claims, demands, actions, suits, and causes of action against Microsoft and/or its directors, officers, employees, attorneys, insurers or [snip...]
how is that interesting? that's what a settlement IS--they give you something and you release them from any further liability. This whole reading-comic-books-between-the-lines editorializing is really getting old.
There's nothing "interesting" about a release clause. When you settle a lawsuit, that's what happens (or else why the hell would they settle in the first place?) Note: nobody was forced to join the class action.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Double Jeopardy is not an issue at all. You have to understand that double jeopardy is only an issue in criminal cases. Civil law has no such concept.
I realize that the actual costs involved in suing a company like Microsoft can be astronomical, but for the legal firms in such a case to charge full rate for the entire effort is obscene. Their profit on such cases should be capped at something reasonable, like 5-20% of their actual costs (filing fees, supporting research, etc. and not the lawyer's time. Their time is what the percentage is to cover, not double-dipping as both an hourly employee and as a profit-sharing partner of the firm.)
Realistically if such limits were imposed across the board, 90% of the frivolous lawsuits in court would go away. It's the leeching lawyers who often advise their clients to continue, knowing full well that they're going to take the majority of the settlement as "legal costs".
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"But what are the lawyers going to do with $48 million dollars worth of retail coupons towards a Linux distribution purchase?"
That's the point. The lawyers would never think of accepting vouchers for their plaintiffs if they were being paid the same way.
It does bear mentioning that while the lawyers involved are getting a rather tidy sum of cash, it does only amount to 20% of the total. If the lawyers were all saints and accepted no money for their slaying of the MS dragon, the payouts would have gone from, and I agree that it's a silly small amount, $5 to $12 to... $6 to $14.40.
If the payout seems rediculously small compared to how much MS's actions cost consumers, then it's less the fault of the lawyers skimming the payouts and more the fault of the anti-trust system that allows MS to profit billions from it's illegal monopolies and only pay millions when caught.
On the broader topic of 'frivolous' lawsuits, I do deeply recommend to people that are interested in a fair society that they educate themselves about where that particular piece of memetic propaganda is coming from. It's not from anybody that has your interests as a citizen or consumer at heart.
In my opinion, lawyers for class action lawsuits should be paid, "in like manner and no more than 10x the individual payout."
So that means the lawyers should get $120 worth of Microsoft coupons. That seems fair to me. Hell, I'd even be willing to increase it to 100x the individual payout, but the "in like manner" needs to stay. I've been screwed before with the coupon payouts (BoA many years ago), and won't have anything to do with class action lawsuits because of that.
Under the current system, the lawyer's only incentive is to enrich themselves, without regard to the clients.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Save the bold tags and sarcasm for when you're actually right, OK?
Settlements typically have to be approved by the judges -- judges can and will bar them if they feel they're not in the interest of the plaintiff or public. No doubt there are subtleties where a settlement doesn't require approval in some cases but I bet that's not what you're talking about.
Couldn't have said it better. Amazing how many otherwize intellegent and educated people don't understand that. Another point to make is that the vast majority of judges ARE lawyers. While this is probably a good thing since they need to understand the law, this means that only lawyers make decisions that touch many lives. When only lawyers have oversight of other lawyers, the potential for either 1) wrong doing or 2) self interested results are much greater. Add this to the fact that the majority of lawmakers (congressmen), both at a state and federal level are also lawyers, then obviously we have a problem.
It used to be that anyone could take the Bar examination in most any state, and if passed, was legally a lawyer in that state. Now most states have laws that REQUIRE you go to 7 years of college, raising the bar to entry, and protecting their own interests yet again. So now, the only people who can negociate, deal, sign on, and approve a legal matter all have the same education and experiences, with little or no influences (or significant influences) from individuals with a DIFFERENT background and/or interests.
This is probably not a good thing.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
A total waste of time, unless you're a lawyer. Don't expect things to change any time soon; most of our state and Federal legislators are either lawyers or rented by lawyers (ABA).
They don't have to participate. If they find the terms of settlement to be no better than a local pizza offer, they have the right to pursue their own legal options.
The terms of settlement for this issue were agreed to by the judge. Is he party to abuse in this case? Probably not, since there was no abuse.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
This wasn't a judgment, this was a settlement. You can't lump them together.
A settlement is an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant to a dollar amount that makes everyone "happy" enough to drop litigating the case. Here, Microsoft is essentially saying, fine, it's worth $202 million to us to be able to drop this case and the risk that we'd be adjudged against. The plaintiffs are essentially saying, $202 million takes care of enough of our "suffering" to make us drop this case AND the risk that we'd be adjudged against.
One way to look at it is an expected value analysis. Say MSFT puts a 50%-75% probability on losing the case, and that if they did lose, they would suffer a judgment of $300 million. The class puts a 25%-50% chance on winning the case, but a judgment of $400 million if they did win. MSFT's expected value of their loss is between $150 million and $225 million (probability * judgment amount). The class's expected value of their win is $100 million and $200 million. Thus, MSFT is looking to settle at anything less than $225 million. A settlement offer of, say, $250 million wouldn't be worth it to MSFT because they think that at MOST the class has a 75% chance of winning $300 million, and so at that number MSFT would rather take the chance and litigate fully. On the other hand, the class won't settle for less than $100 million. An offer of, say, $80 million wouldn't be worth it to the class because they believe that they have at LEAST a 25% chance of winning $400 million.
Thus, in this example, MSFT and the class will want to settle somewhere between $100 and $225 million.
You can also see in this example that there's no consideration whatsoever of what the effect of the judgment will be on MSFT. The plaintiffs are only looking to see how much they can be compensated. A judgment might involve consideration of the public in the form of punitive damages, but a settlement is nothing but an agreement between the plaintiffs and the defendants.
Micro$oft has a virtual monopoly on the desktop OS (among other things), so this means that money damages against them (at least in these amounts) are virtually meaningless. They will just pass along the cost of such settlements to their hapless customers. Since most people get their Windows OS pre-installed on their hardware from The Big Shiny Box Store, they won't even notice. Monopoly power allows monopoly pricing.
It's good to be king.
All class-action lawsuits have one thing in common: The ability of anyone who does not feel they want to be represented in the "class" to opt out of the settlement. This usually requires the person to contact the law firm to overtly declare that they do not want to be represented. It seems to me this settlement not only enriches the law firm, it grants micro$oft indemnity against EVER being sued for anti-trust violations they might commit from any member of the class in perpetuity.
A good way to kill this deal is to start a grass-roots "OPT OUT" education campaign. This will dilute the power of the settlment, and Micro$oft will STILL have to pay the lawyers, getting doubly screwed. Someone should set up a "Opt Out for Dummies" website to facilitate the process.
I'm sure micro$oft will be thrilled by settling with, say, only 25% of Floridians, and still have to pay the lawyers.
is completely boilerplate. Not a Microsoft trick. Pretty much the same text I see every day when dealing with insurance companies, for instance. (IAAL)
Incidentally, for those of you griping about the legal fees, keep in mind the lawyers get nothing if they don't win the case, have to pay support staff all through the suit (including multiple associates who themselves are making in excess of a hundred grand a year), not knowing whether they'll win or not, and have to justify every bit of their time to the Court down to each tenth of an hour (I left the computer industry, pissed about billing my time in 15 minute increments. Now I do it in six minute increments). $48 million, incidentally, while a large sum of money, is comparatively small in the world of class actions. There's one in the Third Circuit right now where the legal fees will likely reach $3 billion, spread among about 20 law firms.
I'm not a class action lawyer, and I don't make anywhere near a hundred grand a year. But I've seen these guys, and for the work they do and the risks they take, their fees, while high, are not outrageous. (Most contingency fees are in the neighborhood of 33-40% in the rest of the legal profession)
I don't object to lawyers getting a good settlement for their clients and then getting a big chunk for themselves. I do object to their settling for Monopoly money for their clients while getting paid as though the clients received cash.
In your world, there would have been no attorney to take the case, so nobody would have received $12 vouchers, and MS would not have been punished at all.
The purpose of class-action suits is to compensate the plaintiffs for their loss, not to punish the defendant by funneling his money into the lawyers' pockets. You're right -- in my world, there would be no $12 vouchers.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Sure, it was a strange case. Toshiba caved to the tune of about $1 billion because they were worried about treble damages (to the tune of $9.5 billion) being awarded by an unpredictable Texas jury trial.
link
The kicker is that the suit is over a bug in a 10+ year old floppy drive controller chip manufactured by NEC, where neither NEC nor Toshiba ever received a single complaint of data corruption. No customer ever claims to have lost data because of the bug - not even the plaintiffs! The plaintiffs simply started the class action lawsuit because they were sold a "defective product". AFAIK the bug has only been reproduced in specific laboratory conditions and not the real world.
The lawyers were using Toshiba as a test case and then were going to go after HP, Compaq, etc. with similar class action lawsuits. I haven't tracked it, but I don't think they made much progress or we would have heard about it.
Should they have fixed the (known) bug? Probably. Was it worth a class action lawsuit, especially of this magnitude? Absolutely not. This is extortion plain and clear, and the scary thing is it's accelerating. If this keeps up it will eventually be impossible for any business to exist for more than a few years without being sued out of existence by corrupt, opportunistic, money-grabbing lawyers. The minute you make any kind of mistake they pounce, with grossly exaggerated damage figures that aren't even sane, but somehow actually get awarded--especially by jury trials--with an extremely low burden of proof.