Table Saw Injury

[skou]

OK, I've got a Model 10. (Or 4.) If I hurt myself on this (or these) machines, whom do I get to sue?

Current Shopsmith Inc? Why! (They were founded a few decades after my machine(s) was (were) built.)

Hans G? (Deceased.) Or his heirs?

Magna? (Long gone.)

Yuba? (They didn't build the machine, but later assumed the company.)

The Government, just for even allowing this $**+ to continue?

See the perplexing situation I'm in? I'm a poor American citizen, with no one to sue!

(Yes, I'm pointing out ABSURDITY, by being absurd.):D

steve

[skou]

I just figured it out!

I can sue Skip, because he is still around, AND built the DC motor for one of my machines.

(Yes, I'm STILL pointing out ABSURDITY, by being absurd.):D

steve

[skou]

Oh, I think that whomever started the whole "sawstop" lawsuit engine, should have a hot dog hammered into BOTH eyes. (And, I can think of a few other places, too.)

steve

[algale]

A triple negative? I had to fall back on my Boolean Algebra training to untangle that one! To be consistent with your argument, I believe that one too many slipped in there!

But seriously, I think you nailed it when you said that the real disagreement is over the "law of strict liability".

Does the law permit economic issues to be considered in such cases?

Suppose that Ryobi, and Ryobi alone, decided to license the SawStop patent and put the technology on all of their saws. Further suppose that the hardware plus royalties added $75 to the manufacturing cost of the saw, and that this translated to a $100 price premium at retail. Would enough customers pay the extra bucks, or would Ryobi be forced out of the saw business, leaving only the "unsafe" competitor models on the store shelves?

And what if Ryobi left the choice up to the consumer? A model Whiz-Bang Basic retails for $400, while the Whiz-Bang Super-Safety model retails for $500. And of course, you can buy the Super-Safety upgrade for only $125, and install later it on your basic model.

So Joe Cheapskate, a jobshop owner, buys the basic model, and his new/untrained trainee promptly loses some fingers. Is Ryobi liable?

The moral of this story: if a safety feature should be mandatory, the legislative branch needs to make it mandatory for all manufacturers. Like seatbelts in automobiles. Unpredictable rulings from the judicial branch are all but impossible for even the best-run businesses to manage well, on the playing field of free-market competition.

And by the way, if I recall correctly Gass' royalty demands are a bit excessive, at 3% of the price of the saw. Sure, 3% sounds reasonable, and that percentage is indeed reasonable and customary when applied to an appropriate basis. Me, I have a great idea for a more reliable tire valve. And I will gladly license it to any car manufacturer for a mere 3% of the price of the entire car.

First of all, you got me on the accidental triple negative! Bad drafting by me. The point is, (1) there isn't any evidence Gass is pulling the strings behind the scenes in these lawsuits and (2) if he were pulling the strings, the evidence would have come out during litigation when he was deposed by defense counsel pre-trial and cross-examined at trial. So let's just put that one to bed once and for all. I grant you he probably takes great pleasure in these verdicts.

Second, while I studied products liability in law school, I'm not a products liability lawyer so I can't answer every one of your questions, which reads like a Bar Examination!

Third, I do remember enough to say that that economic issues are relevant to the question of whether a design is considered unreasonably dangerous and thus defective. Not only must there be a better/safer design when the item was made, but the cost of implementing the safer design cannot be disproportionate to the severity and costs of the injuries that are likely to occur.

Fourth, you have a point about the uncertainty of this system. There's no exact mathematical formula or ratio I'm aware of and it is all a matter of testimony and left up to the jury to decide on a case by case basis. But manufacturers manage to do this kind of economic analysis all the time. They calculate how much it will cost to fix a problem vs how many lawsuits they will lose and for how much and frequently go with the cheaper alternative without regard to the human cost in lives destroyed or lost. We've just seen that with GM and their way-too-late ignition recall.

Fifth, I take your point that if the manufacturer offers both an incredibly safe product at a higher price and a less safe product at a lower price and the consumer picks the lower priced, less-safe one, then the manufacturer shouldn't be liable to the purchaser. But there are counterarguments, including the fact that as often as not, the person who is injured by an unsafe product didn't buy it and may not even be the one using it when they get injured. Should the purchaser's decision to buy an unsafe cheap product excuse the manufacturer for the innocent bystander's injury when the bystander had no say in the matter and the manufacturer knew the product could cause the injury and could be made safe for a few bucks more? Suffice it to say that the jurisdictions that have adopted strict products liability have considered your argument and many others and decided that strict products liability still made sense.

Sixth, I don't know enough about royalties to say whether Gass's demands were excessive or not. I do recall there was testimony in the Rosario trial that Ryobi gave verbal assent to Gass's terms so it couldn't have been that unreasonable.

[BuckeyeDennis]

...

Fifth, I take your point that if the manufacturer offers both an incredibly safe product at a higher price and a less safe product at a lower price and the consumer picks the lower priced, less-safe one, then the manufacturer shouldn't be liable to the purchaser. But there are counterarguments, including the fact that as often as not, the person who is injured by an unsafe product didn't buy it and may not even be the one using it when they get injured. Should the purchaser's decision to buy an unsafe cheap product excuse the manufacturer for the innocent bystander's injury when the bystander had no say in the matter and the manufacturer knew the product could cause the injury and could be made safe for a few bucks more? Suffice it to say that the jurisdictions that have adopted strict products liability have considered your argument and many others and decided that strict products liability still made sense.

...

No, my point is that high-stakes lawsuits in a trial-by jury system, that by its very nature targets individual manufacturers, is an inappropriate mechanism for addressing complex liability issues that are common to an entire industry. In this instance, even if the jury was composed of woodworkers, design engineers, and product managers (and so was actually qualified to address the issues at hand), the resulting verdict should properly result in regulations that are consistently applied to the industry as a whole. Then the playing field would be level, and companies could comply with the regulations efficiently and economically.

I'm not a huge fan of regulations, either, as regulatory agencies have a tendency to go overboard. But it's better than a capricious system of trial-by-jury lawsuits. A jury composed of laymen is not, in my opinion, a "jury of your peers" in this particular context. In my ideal world, a manufacturer would be liable for damages if, and only if, it failed to comply with the applicable regulations. Just like that shop owner, who is sheltered from liability because he paid his Workers Compensation taxes. The current system unnecessarily increases the cost of doing business in the U.S., making the country less competitive globally.