In a leftover from the power struggle in Cupertino between co-founder Steve Jobs and president John Sculley, Apple Computer Inc has been hit with a breach-of-contract suit seeking an absurd $1,000m in damages. The suit is from Woodside Design Associates, which claims that Steve Jobs agreed to buy the company for $5m, and to spend up to $20m with it for development of a flat panel display for the booksize Macintosh that was one of Jobs’ pet projects. According to Woodside president Steven Kitchen, he reached a verbal agreement with Jobs in February 1985, and visited Apple on May 24 1985 expecting to sign papers to close the deal – but that very day, Jobs and Sculley attempted to fire each other, and four days later the board, meeting without Jobs, voted to dismiss Jobs as chairman and put in place a major reorganisation plan devised by Sculley that involved lay-off of 1,200 of the 6,000 employees, closure of several plant, and abandonment of the flat screen Mac. Apple said the suit was with its lawyers and had no immediate comment on it.
