This could be the ultimate excuse for missing a homework assignment. A Michigan high school student named Justin Gawronski is suing Amazon.com -- claiming that when the online retailer recently deleted the George Orwell novel "1984" from his Kindle reader, it also caused his "copious notes" to be "rendered useless." The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle (pdf, 18 pages), seeks class action status and unspecified damages.

According to the lawsuit, Gawronski bought a 99 cent digital copy of "1984" for his Kindle 2 for a summer homework assignment and later saw it "vanish before his very eyes." The complaint goes on:

As part of his studies of “1984,” Mr. Gawronski had made copious notes in the book. After Amazon remotely deleted “1984,” those notes were rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book. The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as “remember this paragraph for your thesis” is useless if it does not actually a reference a specific paragraph. By deleting “1984” from Mr. Gawronski’s Kindle 2, this is the position in which Amazon left him. Mr. Gawronski now needs to recreate all of his studies.

Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company doesn't comment on litigation. Last week Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in a message posted on a Kindle discussion board, apologized to Kindle users over the "1984" incident, calling the company's actions "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."

Amazon apparently deleted copies of "1984" and another Orwell classic, "Animal Farm," because they were unauthorized editions. But the event raised questions about Amazon's ability to remotely control books or other content that people have already purchased.

Gawronski is joined by another plaintiff, Antoine Bruguier, of California, in the lawsuit. It's the latest legal headache for Amazon, which faces a separate lawsuit over cracked Kindles.

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