A company’s reputation can often suffer permanent harm from only one negative customer interaction. That lesson was recently learned the hard way by a prominent electronics manufacturer: Sony has agreed to pay $60 million to a guy who woke up 30 minutes before his Sony alarm clock went off.
Sony Alarm Clock Fails
Robert Woods of Oklahoma received $60 million in compensation from the Japanese corporation as part of an out-of-court settlement for an incident that happened one morning in February when his alarm clock went off exactly at 7:45 a.m., 30 full minutes after he had already woken up. Woods testified that even though he had set his alarm for 7:45 a.m., he suddenly woke up around 7:15 a.m.
Unable to go back to sleep, he was forced to watch each agonizing minute pass on his broken alarm clock until it went off a half-hour later.
The emotional distress and mental anguish Woods experienced while lying in bed wide awake with nothing to do but think about random ideas and stare at the ceiling while wishing fervently that he was still asleep and perhaps even having an interesting dream a wish that would have become reality if his alarm clock had actually woken him up at the time it was supposed to be painted in graphic detail by Woods’ attorneys.
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$60 Million Settlement
Finally, Sony reached a confidential settlement for $60 million with Woods instead of risking a trial over the $100 million in damages he had initially requested because the evidence in his favor was so compelling.
In a statement to the media about the sizable settlement, Woods’ attorney claimed, “If you’re already awake by the time your alarm clock goes off, well, that doesn’t sound like an alarm clock to me that sounds like you’ve been scammed, which my client was, by Sony.”
“My client is happy with how this lawsuit turned out, and we appreciate that Sony made the right decision, but money was never the point of this,” the attorney for the client said.
The $60 million sounds nice, but it’s unlikely that it will ever fully compensate for what he lost when his Sony alarm clock broke. All we can say with certainty is that Woods might sleep a little better tonight knowing that justice has been served.
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