Class action lawsuit filed against RIM for recent outages

This really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering RIM’s decision to compensate the users affected by the server outages with free apps and games from App World but a class action lawsuit has been filed against the manufacturer in the US.

The man heading the charge is Eric Mitchell who is a BlackBerry user on the Sprint network. He filed the claim in the court of Santa Ana, California. The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of all US consumers that are currently under an agreement and using a BlackBerry device. Mitchell acknowledges that his contract is through Sprint and not RIM but says in his argument that he and many others pay the company fees through the carrier. They estimate that RIM takes in about $3.4 million in revenue per day from the services that are paid through the wireless carriers.

Mitchell is seeking cash compensation for himself as well as the rest of the affected users in addition to legal and attorney fees. This is one massive class action suit. RIM had its shareholders file a suit against them back in May, but this one is much larger. According to the claim there could 2.4 million California residents alone that are part of the class. A lawsuit has also been filed in Canada on behalf of BlackBerry users in that country as well.

In the case of “Mitchell, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Research In Motion LTD,” who wins? We’d love to hear what you think on the matter, and if you are a BlackBerry user do you hope to get any further compensation in addition to the free apps?

source: Reuters