A federal appeals court reinstated on Friday a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing Dell Inc of selling defective notebook computers. A panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed a federal district court's 2008 dismissal of the case against the third-largest personal computer maker.""

In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that Dell violated California consumer laws by selling Inspiron notebooks that had inadequate cooling systems, power supplies and motherboards. In Friday's ruling, Judge Lyle Strom said the district court abused its discretion in dismissing the case and "the public's interest in a resolution on the merits weighed strongly" in favor of letting the case continue. The judge also called it "unconscionable" to enforce a provision in customers' sales contracts requiring arbitration, in part because customers may decide not to pursue claims over the $1,200 to $1,500 computers individually.

"Dell has fought very, very hard," said Jonathan Selbin, a New York-based partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP representing the plaintiffs. "We got the courtroom doors open, which was our primary goal."

Learn more about the Dell defective notebook computers lawsuit and the rights of consumers who purchased the affected Dell notebooks.