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."

Comments

What's the point of these suits?

[AdamHaun]

The people *never* get any sort of reasonable payout from these sorts of lawsuits. I don't know why anyone even signs on. Is there a way to file suit against class action lawyers for abusing their clients?

Re:What's the point of these suits?

[aborchers]

The people *never* get any sort of reasonable payout from these sorts of lawsuits

Don't be so sure. I got ~$300 in merchandise vouchers (third-party stuff, not just Toshiba hardware, though of course it came through their catalog so the actual "damages" to them were probably half that) from just such a settlement against Toshiba a few years back.

Judgements/settlements should be a percentage...

[kcbrown]

Notice how often a judgement is either outrageously high or outrageously low?

Seems to me that the real problem is that the judgements are always in terms of dollar amounts. $200 million is a big chunk of cash to almost everyone -- except Microsoft. To Microsoft, $200 million is nothing, half a percent of the amount of money they have in the bank.

Similarly, the little guys often get judgements against them that are tiny in comparison to $200 million, but which easily bankrupt them because they aren't Microsoft -- they're just normal people with normal incomes (if that).

None of this would be a problem if judgements (and settlements) were forced to be expressed in terms of the percentage of the worth of the target. An individual who is forced to pay, say, 20% of their total worth in a judgement or settlement would be hurt pretty badly by it, but they'd almost certainly survive. And the same is true of a huge entity like Microsoft. But the dollar values would be much different. $20K (for instance) against the individual, and something like $20 billion against Microsoft. But those amounts would yield roughly the same effect, and it's the effect that's important in any judgement or settlement.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, the people who judge these settlements or who create these judgements simply don't think properly about the problem. They're focused on the amounts and not the effects.

That's to be expected in a money-driven society, I suppose...