I have just had these problems with Dell myself!
Long story short after like 4 hard drives being replaced & numerous of problems I said the same thing as your mom & they argued with people that spoke little english & used even littler brain function for weeks - they said no way would they replace it - end of story
So I got onto the consumer affairs & they advised after 1st repair ( which has to be a permanent repair) I could have asked for a replacement or reasonable refund so I advised the same to the Dell legal team who were still basically laughing at me & saying no way
I then wrote to a few radio stations & tv shows here in the uk & forwarded on the emails in which I was not very nice about Dell at all.
Vented on Twitter about my problem & someone from http://twitter.com/DellCares twittered at me asking if he could help with the situation & I of course laughed saying yes sure be my guest & he asked what the full story was - I forwarded all my emails to the tv station & Radio stations onto him & within a day he had me a replacement laptop arranged!
Moral of the story is they dont give a shit about being taken to court - they just hate bad publicity so maybe you could try something like I did
Hope that helped I tried to make it as short as I could LOL & try contacting this guy on twitter he seems to give a shit & have a brain