Suit claims hearing loss from iPod

AP ^ | 2/1/06 | Dan Goodin

[okiecon]

Update: My case was settled for a few mil and now Charmin has a big sign on the package: WARNING: FAILURE TO WIPE WITH THE HAND THAT IS HOLDING THE TISSUE MAY CAUSE SEVERE POOPY-FINGER ADVERTENCIA: LA FALTA DE LIMPIAR CON LA MANO QUE ESTÁ SOSTENIENDO EL TEJIDO FINO PUEDE CAUSAR POOPY-FINGER SEVERO AVERTISSEMENT : LE MANQUE D'ESSUYER AVEC LA MAIN QUI TIENT LE TISSU PEUT CAUSER POOPY-FINGER GRAVE WARNING: STÖRUNG, MIT DER HAND ABZUWISCHEN, DIE DAS GEWEBE HÄLT, MAG STRENGES POOPY-FINGER VERURSACHEN ПРЕДУПРЕЖДЕНИЕ: ОТКАЗ ОБТЕРЕТЬ С РУКОЙ ДЕРЖИТ ТКАНЬ MAY ПРИЧИНИТЬ СТРОГОЕ POOPY-FINGER AVVERTIMENTO: L'OMISSIONE DI PULIRE CON LA MANO CHE È TENUTA IL TESSUTO PUÃ’ CAUSARE POOPY-FINGER SEVERO 警告: 疏忽抹以拿著組織的手也許導致嚴厲POOPY-FINGER

[conservative in nyc]

This is old news. Here's the actual lawsuit. It was filed in late January. The plaintiff, John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana, didn't even claim that he lost his hearing. From CNN.com:

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit, which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

"He's bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market," Berman said. "He's paying for a product that's defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it."

John Kiel Patterson is the poster child for tort reform. I wonder how many other times he was the named plaintiff on theoretical nuisance class action lawsuits.

[goldstategop]

It should dismissed and his attorney should be sanctioned for costs. He's not even claiming the device damaged his hearing. Therefore, Apple is not liable for anything the ipod may have done to his hearing. The product isn't defective and a user has a duty to operate it in accordance with the product instructions. That's what we get for lawsuits these days: claims with no factual let alone legal merit to them. John Kiel Patterson is indeed the ideal poster child for tort reform.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[martin_fierro]

	iPod
Send FReepmail if you want on/off iPing list WARNING: This is a high-volume Ping list. Turn your headphones down
The List of Ping Lists

[Caipirabob]

LOL! Great graphic...

Jeez, sometimes I wonder about our society.

[Modok]

Ah wants ma bling fo ma grill

[Fresh Wind]

The portable music players are "inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings ...

If the iPod was big enough to be "adorned" with all the warnings these people want, it would look like this!

[rlmorel]

Utter, complete, saturated, extreme, outlandish, unbelievable, incomprehensible stupidity.

This is liberalism in a nutshell. Lack of personal responsibility. Not surprised this is California, either.

[1234]

Sir(Madam), am thinking about getting a used Mac(or is this dumb?); would u pls post which desk-top models can run the newest(?)OS-X system? Would like Mac to share a new LCD monitor w/my gates windows box.
BIG TX

[sit-rep]

Just damn...

I wonder if I can sue Jensen Car Audio for my hearing loss. That 500 watt system I had when I was a kid, indeed tore my hearing up... Let be call Sam....

[sit-rep]

be = me...

[Military family member]

Next week, I'm filing a $1 billion sut against everyone who has ever pissed me off.

[antiRepublicrat]

Thanks to Spktyr for finding this for a previous post:

[CyberAnt]

LOL! Can you believe these people .. now they want us to restrain them from turning the volume up too high ..?? Good grief!

It's always everybody else's fault but their own. Sheeeesh!

[Skooz]

Next week, I'm filing a $1 billion sut against everyone who has ever pissed me off.

Make it a class action and sign me up pronto.

[antiRepublicrat]

This is old news. Here's the actual lawsuit. I

I just read it. The guy actually referenced Apple's plainly-stated warning and ignored it. Sure, the warning isn't technical. Apple, in their usual user-friendly style, stated the dangers plainly and simply so that anyone can understand instead of listing decibel numbers (which most people don't understand anyway). It even references an easily understandable standard this guy uses in his complaint: ringing in the ears is the sign your sound level is too high.

If this guy had his way, the warning would be a bunch of long-winded techno-babble that nobody but audio engineers would understand or take the time to read.

And he wants that long-winded warning to be directly on the player! So, the entire back of the iPod Shuffle is going to be a micro-printed warning that nobody can read without a magnifying glass. And don't forget it would have to be in English and Spanish so they don't get sued by the hispanics in this country.

I'm suing this guy for emotional distress over reading this pile of crap.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm going to sue because years of exposure to computer monitors has reduced my ability to focus, such that I now need glasses.

[SunkenCiv]

This sounds like something a suit would do.

[higgmeister]

...which seeks class action status

It takes a Village Idiot Class.

[Swordmaker]

Technically, any of the Macs from the G3s forward will run OSX... but the lower speed G3s would be slow. I suggest any of the G4s or G5s (higher Gx is faster, generally). You can get some good deals on older G4s. Note that you must have a DVD-ROM drive to install OSX.4 or higher. The towers are what you are looking for if you want to share a monitor. You can also share the USB keyboards and Mouses if you get a KVM switch.