Will Consumer Product Class Action Lawsuits Ever End?
The idea of manufacturer defects is an engaging one. Should manufacturer be held responsible for any and all problems to a product after it has been sold to customers and a far-ranging defect has been found? If the defect isn’t major, and has tiny influence on the operation of the product should they continue to be forced to fix it? Who decides if a flaw is indeed ‘minor ‘ and how if the whole process best be handled?
There are a few examples today of consumer digital cameras that have well known defects, but the manufacturers’ representatives when asked questions about the issue will state they have not heard about it before. All of the major camera makers are guilty of this, so it seems to be the policy of each company to deny understanding of a problem unless forced to do so legally.
When a large problem arises with a product, and the manufacturer is aware of the issue, they should fix it. That does sound right. For instance, it is announced that the Ford Motor Company decided it’d be cheaper in the long run to NOT recall the “Pinto” model cars that had a hefty rate of catching aflame and exploding when in certain accidents due to poor design. Instead of fixing the difficulty before there was an accident, they decided it’d be cheaper to settle court actions against them for injuries and deaths caused by the design instead. Clearly in this example, the manufacturer should have repaired the car before there was any injury or deaths in the first place.
When it comes to smaller electronics, when is it worthwhile to take the company to court and try to cause them to fix the product? For instance, the Canon SD790 side screws always vibrate themselves loose and fall out of the camera. Then the side trim of the camera body including the handstrap itself to fall off, leaving a large gaping hole in the side of the camera for dirt and debris to enter simply.
The screws should be held in place with something such as “Locktite”, and can be purchased online for approximately $7 including shipping for a pair. In this example should the manufacturer pay each buyer of this camera $7 or send them a pair of screws and some “Locktite” to secure them? We both know that the only real way that would happen is if they were legally made to do so. The problem is, a legal case will take a long time to settle, and the only folks who actually benefit from it are the counsels, and nobody else.
The lawyers in a case like this, representing thousands of buyerss, could stand to earn $100,000 or even more for their time, while the patron sees just $7 each. Is this fair? Is this justice? The case could take years to settle, and meanwhile all you need is a Canon SD790 replacement screws repair kit for your camera!
A rather more honorable thing for the maker to do is to own up to the difficulty and supply a solution for either a particularly nominal cost to the consumer or no charge at all . This will go a good way to extend purchaser confidence in the maker as well as keeping that client loyal to the brand so making the money back thru future purchase. Unfortunately it appears as though large companies might be too concerned about today to contemplate the future.
