Comment 76 for bug 89860

Here is what happens with a 2.6.30 kernel from kernel.org:

After booting the system, he lid button state is reported as "closed".
After closing the lid for several seconds and opening it again, it is correctly reported as "open".
From that point on, the state is correctly reported, but with a rather long delay (c. 10 seconds).

This behavior probably hasn't changed since 2.6.26 or so.