Did you hope that Canon would be held responsible for its all-in one printers? The mysteriousness of the mysterious can’t scan when they’re low on ink, forcing you to buy more? Tough. The lawsuit we mentioned last year was settled privately, not as a class action.
I just checked, and a judge already dismissed David Leacraft’s lawsuit in November, without Canon ever being forced to show what happens when you try to scan without a full ink cartridge. (Numerous Canon customer support reps wrote that it simply doesn’t work.)
Here’s the good news: HP, an even larger and more shameless manufacturer of printers, is still possibly facing down a class-action suit for the same practice.
As Reuters reports, a judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit by Gary Freund and Wayne McMath that alleges many HP printers won’t scan or fax documents when their ink cartridges report that they’ve run low.
“Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that HP had a duty to disclose and had knowledge of the alleged defect,” wrote Judge Beth Labson Freeman, in the order denying almost all of HP’s current attempts to dismiss the suit. You can find it at the end of this article.
It is interesting to note that neither Canon nor HP have spent time trying argue the merits of their printers You can also find out more about the following: scan when they’re low on ink in the lawsuit responses I’ve read. Perhaps they can’t deny it? Epson, meanwhile, has an entire FAQ dedicated to reassuring customers that it hasn’t pulled that trick since 2008. (Don’t worry, Epson has other forms of printer enshittification.)
HP is covering up its backside in one way. The company’s original description on Amazon for the Envy 6455e claimed that you could scan things “whenever”:
But when I went back now to check the same product page, it now reads differently: HP no longer claims this printer can scan “whenever” you want it to. We are now waiting to see if the case will clear the bar needed to become a potential class-action lawsuit, settle like Canon or have any other outcome.
I’m curious: do you have a printer where your scanner won’t scan without ink?