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What is going on here?? Unbelieveable!!

Jeff Bower

Jeff Bower

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DSM, IA
A man has been awarded $$$ after he cut off his fingers with his table saw....Unbelieveable!!

Click for story here

I hope this ruling doesn't put an end to lower end entry level TS that many people buy, myself included, when they get started in wworking. :dunno:
 
So I guess there saying that if he would have bought a sawstop he wouldn't have been injured, sounds to me that he made the choice not to buy the sawstop so therefore it was realy his fault. What every happened to the term "Buyer Beware"
 
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Look at a ladder, all of those labels come from lawsuits or possible lawsuits. When a person puts a hot cup of coffee between their legs and gains money in court, I am surprised it hasn't happened sooner. Does it make me happy, nope. This guy didn't have a dad like mine, he would feel bad for me, but to blame it on the manufacturer when the saw performed as expected and win money, I would be walking around with my dad's boot up my butt.
 
Not really a surprise. All the big saw manufacturers didn't buy the sawstop technology when offered to them because their lawyers said it would automatically define any saw they manufactured without the technology as unsafe. All of them knew this was coming but they figured spending money on defending themselves was cheaper.

If this suit holds up on appeal then it will make a huge difference in future power cutting tool manufacturing.
 
Ok I won't make any friends with this but did the plaintiff even know that a device like sawstop was even available to him when he bought this saw?

Yes he bought an entry level saw but if the manufacturers would have incorporated it in their saws by now could it have been made less expensive by this point in time?

I myself have been keeping an eye on them to see if the cost is coming down and am very interested in buying from a manufacturer that is being innovative. I would even use a gaurd again if I could integrate one like ss uses with built in dust collection that actually looks to be efective.

Should he be awarded money for possibly doing something he shouldn't have been on the saw. NO. Could he have been awarded the money because the manufacturers refused to license the technology there by limiting his choices? Very possible.

All theses lawsuits will do is make lawyers rich and finally force these other manufactures to possibly develop something that might actually be better than what ss has to offer.

That's my .02!:wave:
 
I was not at the trial, do not know the details.... but, on the surface this seems to be setting a disturbing precedent.

It looks to me like if your company does not have any and all the latest possible safety options installed, you can expect to pay for everyone who hurts themselves? Why would companies even offer a lower cost option without the features?

I cannot imagine how this verdict makes any sense given the little data available - except to eliminate table saw options from the market.

...of course, using logic may not be the best approach for these types of things.:p
 
I think it's a logical progression in a litiguous society. The technology is here now, and was made available (wasn't it?). If it was a NEW saw (post SawStop technology), it doesn't surprise me a bit. Not saying I agree with the verdict...
 
I should have mentioned I don't think he should he should have won. If he chose to buy a Ford Focus instead of a GMC Suburban and then was seriously injured after an accident he wouldn't stand a chance in court.

HE chose to buy the Ryobi instead of the SawStop. He had the option and took the responsibility of that choice.

I have a feeling that Ryobi took this as a no-brainer case and had a standard plan of defense, while this guy had some smart lawyers willing to work a little harder. I really don't think it will stand up on appeal.

My second 2¢ :doh:
 
It also mentions that there are still 50 more lawsuits pending to solve for the same reason, if this goes on the inventor of Sawstop is going to be multimillionaire soon.

On the other hand, following the same reasoning, for the same token the goverment could be also be considered subsidiary responsible for not making compulsory the installation of that device on all tablesaws as they did with safety belts in cars many years ago.
 
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i've been doing some reading about sawstop over the last couple of hours after reading this, and i only have one question about sawstop. sawstop comes with an override switch, which can be used, according to sawstop, to prevent false positives, or as they call them, nuisance trips. my question is, what else could cause a false positive?:dunno:
 
Dan Noren said:
i've been doing some reading about sawstop over the last couple of hours after reading this, and i only have one question about sawstop. sawstop comes with an override switch, which can be used, according to sawstop, to prevent false positives, or as they call them, nuisance trips. my question is, what else could cause a false positive?:dunno:
Click to expand...
The sawstop has a feature where you can touch the wood to the blade with the blade not spinning and a light will tell you if the wood MC is high enough to triger the stafty thinggy. Thats when you are supposed to use the override.
 
Welcome to the new Democracy where you are not expected to use your brain. You can't do anything wrong, it's someone elses fault if you get hurt. You have no responsibility and the government and lawyers will take care of you. :(
 
Sawstop did explore attempting to get their technology made mandatory for all manufacturers. That alone was enough for me to never buy their product. It is a good idea but don't cram it down my throat. The whole deal sure smacked of a huge conflict of interest. I sure don't want to see the door opened on this. What are we going to see next? sawstop chainsaws? Do we need OSHA inspecting our home shops? Where does this craziness end?
 
I read the actual court complaint. The guy did not buy the saw - he was working for a flooring company. Personally, I think he should have sued the flooring company for not providing a safe workplace, rather than the saw manufacturer, but the flooring company probably doesn't have any money so he went for the deep pockets.

Mike
 
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Dan Noren said:
i've been doing some reading about sawstop over the last couple of hours after reading this, and i only have one question about sawstop. sawstop comes with an override switch, which can be used, according to sawstop, to prevent false positives, or as they call them, nuisance trips. my question is, what else could cause a false positive?:dunno:
Click to expand...
According to SS, excessively wet wood, wet pressure treated wood, or anything metallic will cause the brake to trip. For the wood, you can put the saw into bypass mode and make a test cut, and the saw will tell you if it would have tripped.

Mike
 
Paul Downes said:
Sawstop did explore attempting to get their technology made mandatory for all manufacturers. That alone was enough for me to never buy their product. It is a good idea but don't cram it down my throat. The whole deal sure smacked of a huge conflict of interest. I sure don't want to see the door opened on this. What are we going to see next? sawstop chainsaws? Do we need OSHA inspecting our home shops? Where does this craziness end?
Click to expand...
According to a study done recently, there are about 38,000 ER visits for table saw accidents in the US each year. 86% were from blade contact, or about 33,000.

Another study reported that the mean cost from a table saw accident is about $30,750, so the annual cost from blade contact table saw accidents is about $1 billion.

Let's say that once the patents on the SawStop technology expire, the added retail cost for a table saw with that type of protection is $250 (average over contractor saws and cabinet saws). If the average life of a saw is 25 years, that extra cost is $10 per year.

Now, let's say that time has gone by and many saws have been sold with that technology. If the installed base of 'safe' saws is 5,000,000 the annual cost for the protection is $50 million.

They'll still be some older saws around and some people might still get injured on a "safe" saw, so let's say that the annual cost of injuries is only cut in half. That's still $50 million to eliminate $500 million in injury cost.

Not a bad deal for society.

Mike

[Please note that the figures are for United States only.]
 
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