SANTA FE -- New Mexico Attorney General Gary King is supporting a lawsuit brought against an online computer retailer by an Albuquerque lawyer claiming unfair trading practices.

Customer Robert Fiser brought a class action suit against Dell Computer Corp. in 2004 for anti-consumer violations over disputes about data-storage capacity on a computer he purchased. The Court of Appeals dismissed, saying he was bound by arbitration agreements, and he appealed to the NM Supreme Court.

King filed an amicus curiae brief last Thursday with the NM Supreme Court supporting Fiser's appeal. "Merchants cannot, in a contract of adhesion, unilaterally set terms that will allow them to skim a few dollars from a large number of consumers with impunity," the brief concluded.

In an accompanying release, King said the Appeals Court wrongly applied Texas law, not New Mexico law, when dismissing Fiser's original appeal. The appellate court ruled that Fiser was bound to arbitrate his dispute with Dell because of a provision on the shipped computer's packaging slip.

"We want to make sure that consumers are clearly and fairly informed about what policies and terms they agree to when they order a product over the internet," King's release stated. "In this case, disclosure to the consumer is an important issue."