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Frequently Asked Questions
Instant Camera Settlement
Can I get reimbursement for my KODAK Instant Camera ?
In January 1986, the Federal District Court in Boston issued an injunction in a lawsuit between Polaroid Corporation and Eastman Kodak Company which prohibited Kodak from continuing to sell instant cameras and film. At that time Kodak announced a voluntary program to compensate owners of instant cameras who could no longer obtain KODAK Instant Film as a result of the injunction. Before Kodak could implement the voluntary program, a class-action lawsuit (Joyce Sampson and William D. Sampson, et al. v. Eastman Kodak Company; Case No. 86 CH 650; Filed in January 1986 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Chancery Division), was filed in state court in Chicago, Illinois on behalf of all owners of KODAK Instant Cameras. When the state court certified a class in that suit, Kodak could no longer deal directly with consumers and implement its voluntary program or it would have been in violation of an order of that court.
A settlement of the class-action lawsuit was eventually negotiated between Kodak and the attorneys who filed the suit on behalf of the owners of the cameras. The settlement was announced in mid-May 1988, and a settlement packet was mailed at that time to all consumers who had called the toll-free number to register their names and addresses with an independent fulfillment company picked by the court. (The toll-free number and instructions on how to participate in the class action were published in newspapers throughout the U.S. and in national publications such as "TV Guide" and "Parade Magazine," as well as on TV, radio and in military newspapers here and overseas.) The settlement packet contained information instructing consumers how to participate in the settlement. In September 1988 the state court in Chicago held a fairness hearing to determine if consumers had ample notification to enable them to participate in the settlement. The court, in approving the settlement, stated that it was the most widely publicized of any of its kind.
Rebate checks and certificates were mailed beginning on November 4, 1988, and the time period for cashing them has expired. Neither the checks nor the certificates can be reissued, and computer records are no longer available.
Kodak, by court order, was not permitted to handle the fulfillment aspects of the settlement, nor make any additions, changes, exceptions or other modifications to it. Therefore, Kodak could not then and cannot now offer consumers anything more in connection with the program, even as a goodwill gesture. The settlement exchange program which began in May 1988 was terminated in October 1990 by the state court in Chicago, Illinois, and the entire program is over.