Aggrieved consumers claim that the damage occurred to the serial ports of their PCs when a static charge passed through the brushed aluminium case of the Palm V series PDA, via its Hot Sync docking cradle. With damage to a serial port, a PC can become impossible to re-boot.
A lawsuit has been filed in California against Palm and its former parent company 3Com. The lawsuit originally alleged that the software which connects certain Palm PDAs to PCs damages or destroys the motherboards of certain PC brands. It was later amended to state that the problem could be static electricity, and argues that the risk was foreseeable and avoidable during design.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two US-based Palm PDA users and seeks class action status for all those consumers affected.