Slashdot Mirror
Dell Laptop Burns House Down
Nuclear Elephant writes "The Consumerist is running a story about a house burned down by a Dell laptop. 'My 130-year-old former farm house was engulfed in flames, with thick dark smoke pouring out of the windows and roof... Hours later, after investigation the fire marshal investigator took me aside asked me if I had a laptop computer. Yes — I told him I had a Dell Inspiron 1200.' It was determined that the laptop, battery, or cord malfunctioned after its owner left for work, leaving the fire to spread through the entire house. All attempts to contact Dell have failed. 'I have tried to call Dell to at least notify them of my problems, but each time I have called I get transferred into an endless loop of "Joe" or "Alan" all speaking a delectable version of English I presume emanates from Bangalore. I have been outright hung up on each time I get someone who speaks a reasonable version of English, or sounds like they might be in charge of something. Promises of call backs have gone, of course, unreturned.'"
That's nothing... An iPod killed my family!
Burning Down the House may have been a poor choice for a new a theme song.
Dell's a corporation. They're either a Texas or a Delaware corp. (Probably Texas.) They'll be registered with whatever the local equivalent of the secretary of state's office is. They'll have provided the name and address of a person or agency authorized by them to receive service of process (in the event they're sued or something). Send a certified letter to that person/agency. You'll get someone's attention right quick, without plowing through India.
You might also think about talking to a tort lawyer. From what I got from this article, you've probably got a pretty good consumer products liability claim. (Even if you're not interested in pursuing it, whomever insured your farm house -- it was insured, right? -- is probably interested in recouping their loss. And, enough of these exploding Dells have made the news of late, it might force Dell to be substantially more careful when designing their next round of laptops... But, then, I'm a trial lawyer, that's how I think. :)
Good luck, sorry to hear about your loss!
geek. lawyer.
So what do you want "Alan" to do about it? Send another replacement parts?
This is the new combined security and power-save model in Vista. Your PC can't get infected by spyware, no one can hack your home network, and you won't use any power, if the computer just burns the whole place to the ground.
I think it's in the Screen Saver settings someplace:
"[x] Enter Burn-House-to-Ground mode after [ 30 ] minutes of inactivity."
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I had some problems with getting Dell to complete my order (some recovery CDs were missing). I posted about it on Slashdot a few months back and got a reply from a US Dell employeee telling me to drop him a line and he'd help fix it (I'm in the UK) and try to his word after a couple of phone calls everything was sorted out and dandy.
So before everyone starts ragging on Dell, remember there are at least a couple of good apples there.
I like muppets.
At this point I believe the best thing would be to call a lawyer who has experience handling cases such as this. While this one is possibly a first, I am sure there are a slew of them out there who specialize in suing companies due to damage caused by faulty manufacturing or defective parts.
In the event that this was not faulty manufacturing or parts, for example if the man frayed his cord and left it damaged, then he doesn't have a leg to stand on, otherwise it should be pretty straight forward if it shows it in the report on the fire.
YouStockIt - Education through Unorthodox Methods
"Well, this is your problem right here -- this thing's set to EVIL!"
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Let the insurance company handle it. That is what you pay them for, they don't want to pay the claim themselves and the insurance company has the deep pockets to cover legal fees.
First and foremost, I am sorry for the loss of your home. The best suggestion I can give you is:
Get a copy of the Fire Marshal's report that specifies the source of the fire being the laptop in question, deliver it to your insurance company, and then go talk to a lawyer.
It sucks, but as an individual, you have less a chance of gaining the attention of the company in question (never mind the /. post) than the lawyer pool of your insurance company will.
Good Luck
"Dude, you're getting a fire extinguisher!"
I imagine this has happened many times before. It can just be hard to narrow down the cause to a single source.
5 years ago, 6 out of 100 of our new 17" Dell monitors went up in flames, over the first 3 months. This was fortunately an office building with very high ceilings, so there was little risk. I've long imagined just how bad that could have been in a private home, with a low ceiling, and wall nearby. That experience alone stopped me from ever buying anything from Dell.
All the articles on Notebook fires are very old news. Dell's been having fire problem with their entire product range for about the past 10 years. Passing it off as Sony's fault ignores Dell's long history of similar ocurances with all of their machines.
Since it happened to me, I've been wonder when I'd hear about a class action against Dell, but it's never been forthcoming. I guess residential building fires can cover up the evidence pretty well. Sooner or later, it's going to have to come out.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
>You might also think about talking to a tort lawyer.
The parent, being an attorney, may be taking for granted that everyone knows about coordinating with insurance companies.
Read your policy, and look for fine print about attempting to recover damages on your own. You could seriously alienate your insurance carrier if you made a misstep in the legal system that blocked their chance of recovering money using their own lawyers.
Let's get this one out of the way first: the Inspiron 1200 was not one of the models listed in the recall program.https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/
I would like to know if the battery in the defective unit was one of the batteries subject to recall. If it was, then the owner bears some responsibility.
IANAL (and this is not legal advice, yadda yadda...) but I think that, in order to prove that in court, you'd have to prove that A) the battery was one of the Sony recalled batteries B) The customer could reasonably be expected to have been aware that the battery in his laptop was one of the recalled batteries C) Despite knowing that the battery was dangerous and subject to recall, the customer did nothing to get a replacement
But more than this, the maker of the battery was likely of Sony origin and quality.
Which would only add a co-defendant in the lawsuit, if the guy were to go down that road.
And really, what is Dell supposed to say to claims of "you've burned my house down?"
Excellent point. If someone accused me of that, all I'd say is, "No comment." The next thing I'd say is, "Let's talk confidential settlement. Howzabout I give you a million dollars for your house, without admitting any liability?"
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Presumably you have insurance? If so, this little stunt could cost you your claim...
Insurance policies have a clause in it re: subrogation. E.g. If Dell is really at fault--the insurance company will pay you directly, and then go after Dell for the money..
BUT your policy also has a clause in it saying that you must not do anything to obstruct the insurance company's ability to subrogate. This little slashdot stunt and posting your story online may just do that.. You may have fscked yourself twice over.
I wonder if this is a hoax. The Portland News site does not say anything about the cause of the fire. It does not even name the owner of the house. All we have is some guy named Dan (no last name) writing a letter to a blog claiming a Dell laptop burned down his house. Has anyone bothered to check the facts?
Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of laptop batteries in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
He obviously forgot to install a "firewall".
... Ok, I'm leaving.
First, STFU in public about what happened. Not online, definitely not to the news media. Anything you say, especially if you speculate as to the cause, could come back to haunt you if this ever goes to trial.
Repeat "no comment" to yourself aloud a few hundred times to get used to it.
Next, call your insurance company. Let them sort it out. Let their lawyers fight it out with Dell if the laptop is determined to be the cause.
We don't let lawyers write code, by the same token, you shouldn't try to handle this with Dell yourself. You shouldn't be contacting them at all.
Yeah, especially if they were planning on using that laptop to do it.
I'd rather be an ignorant moron than an anonymous coward.
No big deal, they'll just use "We Didn't Start the Fire" instead.