CrunchPad Debacle Goes to Court

In a move that shouldn’t be very surprising to anyone, Michael Arrington announced that his CrunchPad team has filed a lawsuit against Fusion Garage, the hardware manufacturer involved in building the device.

In case you were in an extended post-turkey hibernation, the CrunchPad was palpably close to launch and then fell apart at the last minute a few weeks ago. Fusion Garage bailed on Arrington’s team because the latter reportedly couldn’t deliver. Since then, Fusion Garage rebadged the device the JooJoo, which coincidentally is scheduled to be available for pre-order today.

The lawsuit, filed in a Northern District of California Federal Court includes a host of official charges such as Fraud and Deceit, Misappropriation of Business Ideas, Breach of Fiduciary Duty, and some other intimidating allegations that we’ll need a lawyer to comprehend (and possibly pronounce).

If you didn’t get your fill of drama on last night’s episode of Jersey Shore (what in God’s name is going to happen with Ronnie and Sammie? Why do they torture us so…), head over to TechCrunch and find out why Fusion Garage really is the devil. We especially enjoy little tidbits like this:

“Fusion Garage is, and always has been, a company on the edge of going out of business. Their main shareholder, the guy who wrote the now infamous email telling us that we were no longer part of the project, is a chiropractor named Bruce Lee. The company was constantly raising debt from unsavory investors, borderline loansharks, to make payroll.”

And who could forget this little gem: “The founder of Fusion Garage, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, isn’t a good guy.”

Ummmm…if you knew all that, why did you go ahead and get in business with them in the first place?

Oh well, we’ll let the court sort through that mess. Good luck judge. [via TechCrunch]