Apple Wins iPod Antitrust Lawsuit, Found Not Guilty of Harming Consumers

[Karma*Police]

People always talk about the McDonald's case without knowing the facts. McDonalds over a ten year period received over 700 complaints that its coffee was too hot, and many people complained of third degree burns. The restaurant ignored its customers concerns.

Home coffee is usually brewed from a machine at 135 degrees. It is typically served in restaurants at 155 to 175 degrees.

Mcdonalds was serving coffee at 185 to 190 degrees, which is not the industry standard and is hot enough to give somebody a third degree burns.

I think most people might expect to burn themselves if they put a coffee cup between their legs and the lid came off, but I doubt most people would think the burns would be so bad you end up in the hospital for days and need skin grafts.

Further, the lady was only sung for like 20 grand to cover hospital expenses. It isn't her fault fault McDonalds didn't just pay up.

700 complaints over a 10 year period is amazingly LOW considering how many people McDonald's serves every day.

This ruling was overturned for good reason: it would've set a bad precedent and anyone who spilled coffee or other hot drink on themselves could've sued McDonald's (or anyone else) for millions.

As for the coffee's temperature, any self-respecting coffee drinker will tell you that you need to brew coffee at around 200F to make good coffee. The fact that most people buy crappy coffee machines at home doesn't mean that McDonald's was in the wrong.

Bottom line: take responsibility for your own actions and stop dragging this country down with silly lawsuits.

 

[infantrytrophy]

What are you doing posting in the MacRumors forums? All I see when I browse in here are mostly (apparently) teenagers trying to get into tech nerd fights with each other; not thoughtful, informed posts like yours. Thanks. #

Thanks; you made my day!

I'm far from being a teenager -- I'm actually a retired physician with plenty of time to drill around finding interesting topics to discuss. Class action lawsuits are a particular interest. It's nice to see a "righteous" decision (e.g, the iTunes/iPad case) once in a while. And I'm having fun analyzing economic issues and disruptive technologies.

We live in interesting times. My first computer was an Apple ][ in 1979. I observed Microsoft take over the software market with its BASIC interpreter in the late 1970s and with DOS and then Windows and Office in the 1980s and 1990s. Apple finally got its act together in the late 2000s. Class action lawyers are constantly trying to suck money from the successful companies, and I enjoy seeing them (the lawyers) lose when they deserve to lose.

If the class action lawyers are so smart, why didn't they invent the BASIC interpreter in 1978, or Windows in the 1990s instead of trying to bleed money from successful companies? Or why didn't the class action lawyers just buy Microsoft stock in 1986, or Apple stock 2008, instead of trying to extort money with lawsuits?

 

[MH01]

"the group said Apple's iTunes 7.0, released in the fall of 2006, was a "genuine product improvement," "

Well they clearly have not used iTunes, while I loved iTunes when it first came out, by 2007 it was already crap bloatware, they should appeal on this alone, easy to prove it has not improved each generation

 

[gnasher729]

700 complaints over a 10 year period is amazingly LOW considering how many people McDonald's serves every day.

The original poster didn't put this quite right. McDonald's didn't get 700 complaints. MacDonald's settled 700 injury cases out of court, for unknown amounts of money. That's 700 cases where McDonald's paid to stay out of court.

This ruling was overturned for good reason: it would've set a bad precedent and anyone who spilled coffee or other hot drink on themselves could've sued McDonald's (or anyone else) for millions.

The ruling wasn't overturned. The money amount was changed. The victim had just asked for her hospital bills to be paid. The jury changed this to multi millions without actually being asked for that (she sued for $25,000), and that was changed to several hundred thousand.

When damages are awarded correctly, what counts is whether the company was at fault (which it clearly was), whether the victim was at fault as well, and what the amount of damage was. The damage in this case was horrendous. If that woman could turn back time and not buy the coffee and not get money in court, I'm quite sure that is what she would choose. It's what I would choose.

 

[Tech198]

"Apple argued that the iTunes update in question was done mainly to improve the iTunes service rather shut down third-party music services, a point that the jury agreed with."

Apple can use this same term for anything. They can also disable anything they like..

Their Apple, everyone knows how they work, but apparently Real-networks didn't.

 

[RobertMartens]

Those lawyers will appeal in 3..2..1...

saying 3..2..1 is kind of old.

 

[eco7777]

everything that controls anything is harmful.

All i am saying.

 

[lparsons21]

It's funny how people always say that the Mcdonalds Hot coffee case is one of the most misunderstood cases and then make multiply false claims.



Can you cite a source for any of your numbers?



135 degrees?

155-175 degrees?



Did you even google coffee brew temperature?



From almost everything I have read, the industry standard is for coffee to be brewed from 195-205 degrees.



http://www.scaa.org/PDF/SCAA-Certified-Home-Brewer-Booklet.pdf



"In 1994, a spokesman for the National Coffee Association said that the temperature of McDonald's coffee conformed to industry standards."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants



Water Temperature



"The brewing temperature of the water used is very important. It should be between 195 F (91 C) and 205 F (96 C). The closer to 205 F (96 C) the better. Boiling water (212 F - 100 C) should never be used, as it will burn the coffee. Water that is less than 195 F (91 C) will not extract properly. Keep in mind that if frozen beans have been ground, the aggregate will drop the temperature of the water upon contact. In this instance the temperature of the water being added to the aggregate should be right at 205 F (96 C)."



http://www.blackbearcoffee.com/resources/87



I hope you never open a coffee shop and brew it at 135 degrees or any of the other numbers you pulled out of your a**, because it will not do very well.

Brew temp and serving temp are two entirely different things. Yes you should brew between 195F and 205F, but you darned well shouldn't serve it at that temp or even hold the pot at those temps.

 

[HurtinMinorKey]

It was never that bad; people paid hardcover prices if they wanted to read the book right away or waited a year and bought the softcover for 1/3 the price. It's about what the market will bear so the pubs were always limited in pricing power based on perceived value. I know; I used to work in that industry and there's a reason why Jack Welch identified publishing as one of the industries he wouldn't get into... they don't make that much and it's shrinking.

The worst case scenario is a monopolist like Amazon driving all competition out of the marketplace and completely dictating terms to both the consumer and publisher. Just look what happened to Hachette... it hurt Amazon a little, but Kindle customers and Hachette a lot more.

Just calling Amazon a monopolist doesn't really do justice to the market dynamics. Amazon's market power in e-books can be seen as countervailing the market power of the major publishers, who for a long time have engaged in little to no price competition with each other. The publishers were looking for a way to raise the price of e-books, Apple was looking to get into the market, and together they launched a scheme that appears to violate antitrust law.

 

[ctdonath]

People always talk about the McDonald's case without knowing the facts. McDonalds over a ten year period received over 700 complaints that its coffee was too hot, and many people complained of third degree burns. The restaurant ignored its customers concerns.

Home coffee is usually brewed from a machine at 135 degrees. It is typically served in restaurants at 155 to 175 degrees.

Mcdonalds was serving coffee at 185 to 190 degrees, which is not the industry standard and is hot enough to give somebody a third degree burns.

And home coffee brewed from a machine usually sucks precisely because the temperature is at an ineffective 135°.

As another noted, the well-established fact is GOOD coffee _must_ be brewed at 200°, give or take 5°. That's the temperature required for optimal extraction of flavors from the grounds.

It's coffee. It's supposed to be hot. The cup is hot when they hold it. There's a statement "WARNING - HOT" on it. People want it, they want it hot, and if they're stupid enough to do something stupid with a handful of hot liquid then they'll discover that stupidity can hurt - a lot.

----------

Brew temp and serving temp are two entirely different things. Yes you should brew between 195F and 205F, but you darned well shouldn't serve it at that temp or even hold the pot at those temps.

If you wait to serve it until it's down to a "safe" temperature, it will be cold by the time the customer actually gets around to drinking it.

It's hot. You're an adult. Be careful. If you don't want the risk, don't take it.

 

[Henry 3 Dogg]

This may be overly technical, but there is no "guilty" or "not guilty" in civil litigation. Guilt is a matter only for criminal cases. In civil cases, the matter is whether the defendant is "liable." Thus, the headline should read "Found Not Liable Because Consumers Were Not Harmed"

Hmmm I don't think so.

You can be liable to someone because failure in an obligation, for example contractual, or a lack of care. There is no question of guilt. But there is a question of whether the event happened. And a question of liability for the consequences.

But in this case, there was an accusation of an illegal anticompetitive act, and assertion that as a result of that act, iPod prices went up. If Apple aren't guilty of that illegal act, then there is no need to consider the existence and causality of the loss, and hence liability.

So, as stated in the article, Apple's actions were not anti-competative but simple security. So Apple is not guilty of an illegal anti-competative act.

Had Apple been found in a civil court to have acted in an illegal anti-competative way it would still have been unclear that

a) prices of the iPods went up as a result. If iPods are made less capable, one would expect prices to be lower, rather than higher, as a result. So there is no evidence that iPod buyers suffered the alleged loss anyway.

b) that the litigants, who didn't have the iPods in question, had any status whatsoever in the discussion.

So the question of liability considering that c) there wasn't a relevant loss and d) the litigants weren't even relevant, would have been unlikely to arise.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It's normal that it's a unanimous verdict. The jury is required to produce one.

In criminal cases only. I believe split verdicts are allowed in at least some civil cases. The quickness of the jury's verdict is more telling than the vote.

----------

The plaintiffs couldn't actually find a single person who gave evidence that they were harmed in any way.

That wasn't a part of the trial because it wasn't germane to the case. The case was based on whether Apple was unfairly locking customers who bought iTMS product into the iPod platform. If they'd proved that, then the harm would have been to the entire class of consumers who bought iPods, in the way of paying higher prices for iPods than what they'd have paid if Apple hadn't restrained competition. If the plaintiffs had proved the antitrust case then the damages would have directly followed from that, not from testimony from any consumers.

 

[Z400Racer37]

This is not directed at you per se, but this sentiment bothers me since it's been all over the internet with recent cases. Who are lay people to decide if a judgement is right or wrong? Obviously, in any case both lawyers (being specifically trained in the law) believe their case to be right and it takes a judge and sometimes a jury to sift through evidence and case law, etc. to make a determination of what the law says.

But all it takes is reading a few internet posts (or watching a video) and people think they can declare an outcome right or wrong. I agree that this seems like a sensible conclusion, but not having seen the evidence and not being a lawyer I can't say for sure.

I'm speaking in moral terms here. The Sherman Act is one of, if not the most evil economic law in this country. No one can concretely define it, and therefore, none knows at the time of action, whether their actions are breaking the law or not. I have a right to use my property how I wish, so long as it does not present a physical threat to anyone else. Apple has every right to ban whatever they want on their device, and you have the option to buy it or not. But we do not have the right to tell them what they can do with their device. It doesn't belong to us until we buy it, and we only buy it if we find the terms mutually agreeable, and therefore find more value in the product than we do our money. If you choose to buy it then you deal with the fact that they blocked other content from their devices. This is a win for individual rights, and therefore this is the right verdict, regardless of what some awful set of laws says.

... or more accurately, what the Sherman Act kind of says... depending on how you read it.... or feel at the moment.... or whatever you like...

 

[IJ Reilly]

I'm speaking in moral terms here. The Sherman Act is one of, if not the most evil economic law in this country. No one can concretely define it, and therefore, none knows at the time of action, whether their actions are breaking the law or not. I have a right to use my property how I wish, so long as it does not present a physical threat to anyone else. Apple has every right to ban whatever they want on their device, and you have the option to buy it or not. But we do not have the right to tell them what they can do with their device. It doesn't belong to us until we buy it, and we only buy it if we find the terms mutually agreeable, and therefore find more value in the product than we do our money. If you choose to buy it then you deal with the fact that they blocked other content from their devices. This is a win for individual rights, and therefore this is the right verdict, regardless of what some awful set of laws says.

... or more accurately, what the Sherman Act kind of says... depending on how you read it.... or feel at the moment.... or whatever you like...

Ha. Moral terms, my foot. This is just crypto-libertarian market force mysticism of the type we hear all the time from people who like to moon about how they should be able to live in a world that never actually existed.

 

[SixtyK]

There are no lawyer fees. Apple has its own legal department with a flotilla of lawyers that handle its lawsuits.

Correct. In most U.S. states, recoupment of legal fees are typically limited to attorneys who are "not among your salaried employees". If a company employs legal representation full-time (as Apple does) those legal fees are an existing cost of operation, regardless of this or any other litigation.

Look at me trying to sound smartish.

 

[Praesto]

Given the unanimous decision. Can some enterprising Lawyer chime in whether there is room for appeal here?

I work in business to business class action litigation, I am not a lawyer, but to my knowledge it can be appealed similarly to any other case. I am not 100% sure though.

 

[za9ra22]

...I don't really have a dog in this fight, I don't buy digital books, and while I'm an Apple fan, to me it looks like what they did was illegal, but as I posted earlier, I'm just a layperson and am not privy to all the facts.

As a shareholder-owned company, Apple would inevitably run any and all proposed agreements through their legal department before signing them. Obviously this doesn't mean that the company can never act illegally, but it does demonstrate that their lawyers believed the proposed agreements with the publishers were legal. The publishers would also have run the proposed agreements through their own, separate legal departments and also concluded they were legal before signing them.

That the DoJ and Denise Cote felt otherwise is evident, but it clearly isn't an issue which is as clear cut as those of us not privy to all the evidence heard in court would seem to believe it to be.

 

[RedCroissant]

Apple made something and then decided how it should work.

The lawsuit didn't seem right. Because Apple made something good, other people decided that Apple shouldn't be allowed to control it any more? Really? So you have to give up control over anything that YOU make once it gets popular? How is that fair?

Well it's not fair at all and most likely what the jury and others realized during this case.

I think, if you haven't already, you should read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This is a great contemporary example of the ideas and concerns that she created in her novel in the early 20th. It's great and one of my favorites.

 

[cfedu]

Brew temp and serving temp are two entirely different things. Yes you should brew between 195F and 205F, but you darned well shouldn't serve it at that temp or even hold the pot at those temps.

The guy I'm talking about said coffee is brewed at 135 degrees. MacDonald's serves its coffee at the industry standard.

 

[einsteinbqat]

In criminal cases only. I believe split verdicts are allowed in at least some civil cases. The quickness of the jury's verdict is more telling than the vote.

Anything that implicates a federal court requires an unanimous verdict. And this trial took place in a federal court therefore the unanimous verdict.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Well it's not fair at all and most likely what the jury and others realized during this case.

I think, if you haven't already, you should read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. This is a great contemporary example of the ideas and concerns that she created in her novel in the early 20th. It's great and one of my favorites.

Sorry, no statue of St. Ayn for my dashboard. Her novels are some of the best unintentional comedy ever written.

----------

Anything that implicates a federal court requires an unanimous verdict. And this trial took place in a federal court therefore the unanimous verdict.

Interesting. I've found conflicting information on whether it's always required or only sometimes, depending on the type of case and jury size.

 

[kdarling]

700 complaints over a 10 year period is amazingly LOW considering how many people McDonald's serves every day.

This ruling was overturned for good reason: it would've set a bad precedent and anyone who spilled coffee or other hot drink on themselves could've sued McDonald's (or anyone else) for millions.

The ruling of McD's being mostly liable for her injury was not overturned. However, the jury award was reduced.

One reason McDonald's lost is because they had already paid out a half million dollars over time to previous burn victims. Therefore the dispute was more over the amount, not over whether they should pay anything.

She asked for $20,000 to cover her expenses. McDonald's offered her less than $1,000, so she sued, and the jury sided mostly with her. In the end, McD's paid about $500,000 to settle.

 

[Cartaphilus]

Originally Posted by IJ Reilly

Interesting. I've found conflicting information on whether it's always required or only sometimes, depending on the type of case and jury size.

Rule 48 of the FRCP requires a unanimous verdict in jury trials even in civil cases, unless the parties stipulate otherwise.

 

[MuppetGate]

And all the other defendants decided to plead guilty when there was no evidence.

riiiight

They didn't plead guilty; they decided to save themselves a wedge of money by paying the fine. That's a business decision, not an admission of guilt.

Secondly, just because the publishers conspired between themselves, that doesn't necessarily mean that Apple was involved.

Apple offered them the deal and left them to it.

 

[grahamperrin]

Yep

What a waste of time

Yeah, I can imagine him thinking that. Or saying that, but not in the deposition. Reportedly mentally sharp, snarky, defensive, evasive and opaque … I'd expect any normal human being to behave in that way in that situation. And I'm glad that the video recording will not be published.