Game Politics ([info]gamepolitics) wrote,
2005-07-27 14:56:00
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Hot Coffee Spills Over Into Class-action Lawsuit

The Associated Press is reporting that a 85-year old woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Take-Two and Rockstar over the GTA San Andreas Hot Coffee scandal. The action was filed in the Southern District of New York earlier today and seeks to establish class-action status for purchasers of the game. The plaintiff, Florence Cohen, states that bought GTA:SA for her teenage grandson late in 2004 when it was rated "M". Now that Hot Coffee has been revealed, Ms. Cohen is claiming unfair business practices, consumer deception and false advertising.

The AP reports that Take-Two had no comment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Class-action lawsuits often translate to a little bit of money for individual plaintiffs (what's the loss here, $49.99?), but big bucks for the attorneys representing the entire class of plaintiffs. In San Andreas' case the potential pool of plaintiffs could number in the millions.

UPDATE: One of our GP faithful has weighed in with the news that the attorney is Laurence D. Paskowitz. That been confirmed and Paskowitz has an apparently thriving class-action practice.

LATEST UPDATE: The New York Daily News is reporting a couple of new bits of information. The plaintiff, Ms. Cohen, is from the Bronx. And what she wants is a refund of her fifty bucks.


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  • 30 comments

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:12:42 UTC 6 years ago

Ahhh, all hail American opportunism! It was only a matter of time before someone tried to cash in on HC.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:15:25 UTC 6 years ago

How can she make those allegations when the FTC investigation hasn't even concluded? I'd like to know the attorney's name too.

Anonymous

6 years ago

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Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:15:49 UTC 6 years ago

They've been cashing in for weeks. (News, Politicians, Activists, etc...) This is just a new low.

Anonymous

July 28 2005, 18:23:39 UTC 6 years ago

HOW DO YOU DO HC??

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:33:02 UTC 6 years ago

But isn't it the ESRB (or whatever it is) which falsely advertised the game? Or, even, wasn't the game not falsely advertised, just falsely rated?

And how is this bad? You get more than you thought you were paying for. If your son is under 17, maybe you shouldn't be buying them a game rated for 17+. (I assume R is 17+. I'm not American, so I'm not 100% sure on that.) I would have thought running around with guns, shooting people, would have been worse than a little crap sex game.

I don't get people. Violence is one of the biggest problems in the world, but a little mini-game hidden away or a nipple on live television and the world gets in an uproar.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:37:14 UTC 6 years ago

I just realized something

The woman herself admitted she bought it for him. Doesn't that mean then that it was she who harmed her grandson, and not anyone else?

[info]gamepolitics

July 27 2005, 20:00:57 UTC 6 years ago

Re: I just realized something

I don't think they are alleging actual harm to anyone by the content of the game, just that the marketing was deceptive.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:51:43 UTC 6 years ago

I found more info. Attorney's name included

And now the lawsuits...
As we predicted on July 16, the ridiculous lawsuits over the Grand Theft Auto video game "scandal" have begun. The lead plaintiff in the putative class action is an 85-year-old grandmother, Florence Cohen, who bought the game for her 14-year-old grandson, who may have his own claims for emotional distress when his ninth-grade classmates beat him up. I suspect the eventual lead-plaintiff deposition I imagined is likely to be more entertaining than the game itself.

"Laurence D. Paskowitz, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Cohen, said no parent would knowingly buy an adult-only video game for their children." Because a "M-for-Mature" 17-or-over game featuring graphic violence, profanity, and "strong sexual content" is so much more appropriate. The sex scenes that are the subject of the lawsuit are only available by taking affirmative steps to download a modification from the Internet and install it: if her 14-year-old grandson has that much freedom with a computer to be able to experience the pixeled sex (an allegation that is missing from press accounts), what else is he downloading?

The Class Action Fairness Act is already paying dividends; the case was filed in federal court, which increases the likelihood that federal judges will correctly decide that class certification is inappropriate. (AP, "Grandmother sues maker of 'Grand Theft Auto'", Jul. 27; hat-tip to W.F. and A.B.).

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:57:30 UTC 6 years ago

Re: I found more info. Attorney's name included

Wow... This lawyer is a real winner.

Here's his site:

http://www.classactionsonline.com/

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 19:58:37 UTC 6 years ago

Re: I found more info. Attorney's name included

Jesus, what parent buys a 17+ only game for their kid?

Unless this is a class action suit for a lot of parents with 17 year old children, this isn't going to amount to much more than list of parents who are, in fact, legally idiots.

Anonymous

6 years ago

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Anonymous

July 27 2005, 20:42:08 UTC 6 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't R* and/or Take-Two already say they would exchange or refund peoples money for the game?

[info]gamepolitics

July 27 2005, 21:02:59 UTC 6 years ago

No, and there has been some griping about, in particular by Hillary.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 21:05:23 UTC 6 years ago

No. They said that they would replace the unsold versions that stores have in stock with the new version or give them AO stickers to put on the current version.

[info]n3m3515

July 27 2005, 21:08:54 UTC 6 years ago

The Industry MUST win...

Punished for modded content...


I wonder if I go and mod my Windows Start-UP screen to be a picture of animal on human female pornography if I can then sue MS for distributing this product.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 21:17:36 UTC 6 years ago

Re: The Industry MUST win...

I say we modify a pic of Hillary and Jack nude and then sue them for indecency.

Anonymous

6 years ago

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Anonymous

6 years ago

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Anonymous

July 27 2005, 22:11:05 UTC 6 years ago

Rockstar deserves what is coming to them. This all could have been avoided with some decent PR. They handled this whole thing terribly.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 22:21:15 UTC 6 years ago

*smacks herself in the forehead...again.*

You've got to be kidding me. I'm sorry, but if a game is rated mature, it's not for my 14-year-old grandson, son, cousin, nephew or next door neighbor. R* and TTwo putting an AO doesn't make much of a difference. The game was inappropriate for a 14-year-old in the first place. Period. End of story.

I'm friggin 24 and I figured that out. This woman was 85! I just don't understand...

[info]blackmanta

July 27 2005, 22:37:59 UTC 6 years ago

This lawsuit has about as much structural integrity as a piece of tissue paper. Anybody can see that. Class action lawsuits can be filed on behalf of everything and anything (my GF got a letter in the mail asking to take part in a c/a lawsuit against Palm for a defect in their products that caused people to lose their data. Is she suing? No.) That's no guarantee that it'll succeed. More than likely the judge will throw it out.

As for Cohen, well boo-fucking-hoo. It's just further testament to how clueless some people can be...especially people her age who have absolutely no concept of what video games are (just from personal experience, my own grandparents are so out of it they can't even begin to understand many video games today!)

Just as an example, again my girlfriend, who works for a big-name retailer, once had a customer come up to her register to purchase the new hand-held Mortal Kombat game. My GF asked her, "Who are you buying this for?"

"Oh, this is for my 11-year-old nephew," she replied.

"Um, I don't think this game would be appropriate for him," my GF said, going on to point-out the M-rating displayed on the packaging and describing all the graphic violence in the game. Shocked, the woman left, thanking my GF and saying she would get something more appropriate.

You see, even with the rating displayed prominently on the box, there are still people who ignore it because they don't know it's there, probably like a smoker who buys a pack of cigarettes unaware of the Surgeon General's warning.

I don't blame the ESRB for lack of trying. They've done their ad campaigns in retail stores, periodicals, TV and movie theaters. I've seen them, so I know the message is certainly out there. Unfortunately, it's difficult to fight that kind of ignorance. And as much as I want to believe the best in humanity, I have to admit that there are a lot of stupid people out there.

Anonymous

July 27 2005, 22:44:58 UTC 6 years ago

I'm 17 and planned on remaining a virgin til marriage. Everything was going good until a friend loaded the hot coffee mod on my pc. After playing the minigame I went out and had sexual intercourse with my girlfriend.

Not only is Rockstar responsible for me breaking a vow of abstinence until marriage, but they mentioned nothing about safe sex in the game and now my girlfriend is pregnant. This is an outrage!

Thanks alot Rockstar for ruining my life.

Anonymous

6 years ago

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Anonymous

July 28 2005, 03:37:58 UTC 6 years ago

I thought about throwing in my two cents, then I thought, screw it. She's already lost this case. And she's got one foot in the grave and one on a banana peel anyway, but that's beside the point. Bottom line is, she bought the game for her grandkid knowing full well that the game isn't intended for kids and never was. Her fault entirely.

== BearDogg-X ==

Anonymous

July 28 2005, 14:11:38 UTC 6 years ago

I've yet to see a copy of the Complaint in this ol' broad's suit, but from the limited law quoted in the AP & CNN's articles, it seems to be an Unfair Practices claim under the Uniform Commercial Code. If it's anything like the UPA law where I live, these people either have to 1. try to get an injunction against Take-Two because future people are likely to be decieved by the M rating, and/or 2. prove some kind of actual loss.

I think Take-Two can dodge the first one fairly easily--the M is now an AO, so no one is likely to be decieved by future GTA:SA sales, thus the injunction won't be necessary. Paying $50 for a game you no longer want may or may not be actual loss, but Take-Two can also circumvent this one pretty easily: instead of fighting the suit, simply put out ads saying that, if you want to return GTA, simply send us your copy of the game plus your reciept; we'll send back a check and maybe a little letter of apology in return. That way, these quote-unquote "aggrieved" folk get thier cash, they get rid of this "evil and immoral" game, AND these class action jackasses don't get to rack up a ton of fees, costs, and billable hours putting together a class for the suit.

If they send ME a class action notice, my response is going something like this:

"Short answer: I'm opting out of your class action suit.
Long answer: F&*$ you, you opportunist whores. Kindly do me the favor of dying a quick and painful death.

Love, Mark."

[info]kungfumegadevil

July 28 2005, 15:24:06 UTC 6 years ago

According to the article, she wants fifty bucks, plus "unspecified damages." If all she wanted was a refund, I wonder if she tried asking the cashier at Wal-Mart before going and hiring a lawyer.

Anonymous

July 29 2005, 03:05:56 UTC 6 years ago

That would depend on how long ago she bought the game. Assuming that Wal-Mart(or whatever store she bought it from) would have let her return the game WITHOUT having to exchange it for another copy and despite the package being opened, if she bought it recently, up to right before the rating change went to effect, she could have gotten a refund IF she asked the manager about it. If she bought the game from anywhere between the release date and Easter, she wouldn't get a refund no matter what, as it's way too late.

== BearDogg-X ==

[info]kungfumegadevil

July 29 2005, 14:56:44 UTC 6 years ago

That's fair, but I'd still ask. Managers sometimes (depending on the company, of course) have leeway to accept returns in spite of standing policy if extraordinary circumstances are involved, and I think that can be said of San Andreas just now.

At the very least, it seems more likely to work out an acceptable deal with the retailer than in court.

Anonymous

August 2 2005, 19:31:10 UTC 6 years ago

I believe that she should be tried for contributing to the delicacy of a minor.

-- Walkin'
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