The General Electric Co. was “deceptive” in its initial attempts to address a fire hazard in GE and Hotpoint dishwashers in 1999, a judge has ruled. New York State Supreme Court Justice Louise Gruner Gans said the company led residential customers to believe that the fire hazard, traced to wiring in a switch in the dishwasher, could not be repaired. Instead, GE urged consumers to scrap their machines and offered rebates of between $75 and $125 on new GE or Hotpoint dishwashers.

Gans noted, however, that GE at the same time was providing its commercial customers with the suspect machines instructions on how to fix them. GE gave some consumers the ”misleading implication” that the machines couldn't be repaired, the judge said. A follow-up letter from GE trying to correct the situation was “also false” in suggesting that the Consumer Product Safety Commission did not believe the rewiring option was an effective way of eliminating the fire hazard, Gans said. However, the judge noted that an agreement between GE and the commission announced last month largely addresses the concerns that New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had when he brought the suit.

Gary Sheffer, a spokesman for Fairfield, Conn.-based GE, said the company believes only 36 consumers in New York bought new machines because of the allegedly deceptive information from the company. “We never intended to mislead anyone and we don't believe that we did,” Sheffer said. `”We disagree with the judge's ruling and we're evaluating an appeal.” Sheffer applauded Gans for not finding that GE had acted fraudulently, as Spitzer had argued. About 3.1 million GE and Hotpoint dishwashers made between 1983 and 1989 had the switches which were linked with the fire hazard.