Microsoft Settles Out of Court over Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade

[engine]

Microsoft has gained a reputation for being overly aggressive in pushing Windows 10 onto users, and it's settled a case where a user didn't realise her computer was being upgraded.
There's been quite a lot of discussion on the topic of Windows 10 updates being pushed, so it's no surprise that someone that was caught out decided to take Microsoft to court.

Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgement from the company. Microsoft Settles Out of Court over Unwanted Windows 10 Upgrade [seattletimes.com]

Office/Home PC's Update to Windows 10 automatically [webmasterworld.com]
Microsoft Criticised for Sneaky Windows 10 Upgrade Pop-Up [webmasterworld.com]

[tangor]

The company denies wrongdoing, and a spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation.

Or to set a precedent for the amount any OTHER lawsuits might attempt. Do note that this judgement, which was held off as long as possible, only occurs in the last remaining days of the upgrade push.

[IanCP]

spokeswoman said Microsoft halted its appeal to avoid the expense of further litigation

Utter rubbish. As Tangor said, it was solely to avoid setting a legal precedent.

I utterly despise secret settlements, this forces others into expensive litigation. And no, Microsoft doesn't care about litigation costs, they have beaten down many a litigant before simply because of the legal costs auction where they always win.

[bill]

This was apparently filed in small claims court, where Microsoft couldn't bring in their high-priced legal team. Also you're looking at California's fairly strict consumer protection laws. This wasn't a case to be litigated before a jury. This person experienced some serious down-time due to the upgrade. Even Microsoft support couldn't fix the issue, and even offered $150 for the trouble. The decision was obviously justifiable to the judge.

I don't think this means that everyone who was inconvenienced by this upgrade could get the same result. You would likely have to prove a bit more to achieve this. In this case the plaintiff likely did lose the amount awarded, and they had to build the case and present it. These aren't punitive damages.

[tangor]

Small claims courts have an upper limit on the amount of money that a party can claim. You can sue for up to $10,000, if you are an individual or a sole proprietor. Corporations and other entities are limited to $5,000. In addition, a party (individuals or corporations) can file no more than two claims exceeding $2,500 in any court throughout the State of California during a calendar year. If you do exceed the two cases over $2,500 per calendar year limit, the court may award you only a maximum of $2,500 in each subsequent case even if your proven damages exceed $2,500.

[dca.ca.gov...]
As an individual/sole proprietor the max of $10k is allowed in CA (same in TX, most other States it is between $5k and $7.5k). We (most of us) know that a replacement computer and OS of our choice is significantly less than that amount, so the award of the full $10k does seem to prove other DAMAGES to the plaintiff besides the Win10 fiasco and failure of MS support to correct.

[bill]

I don't think this was for computer replacement, but rather loss of business and all the time she had to spend online with Microsoft Support. Maybe there was some pain and suffering thrown in to reach that maximum level of payment. I haven't read into the case that deeply. As you noted, small claims has a cap, and this case appears to have been decided to the maximum of that cap in California.