Most smoke detectors are ionization detectors; they effectively detect fast-moving high-temperature fires. But if a fire is a smoldering fire from, say, dropping a cigarette on a couch, cheaper smoke detectors do not do as good a job detecting it; for this, one needs a more expensive dual-detection device that also detects photoelectronic signals from such fires. The Hackert family of Schenectady owned two of the cheaper smoke detectors (and disabled one of them), were not woken by a smoldering fire on May 31, 2001, and two members of the family died. Their lawyers, of course, blamed the smoke detector manufacturers, though the smoke detector design was approved by Underwriters Laboratory and did not suffer from a manufacturing defect. A jury agreed, holding the manufacturers 65% responsible (the Hackerts were held 35% responsible for disabling one of their two smoke detectors) for not making a better detector.
A judge reduced the jury’s $6 million pain-and-suffering damages by half, finding that six minutes of pain and suffering wasn’t worth that much, but only highlighting the inherent arbitrariness of non-economic damages. (John Caher, “Judge Finds Three Minutes of Suffering in Fatal Fire Does Not Equal $3M in Damages”, New York Law Journal, Aug. 18).
3 Comments
40 years ago this case – as many others reported on this terrific board – would have been unthinkable, and the decision would have been widely condemned as scandalously wrong.
Today, it’s ho-hum, another day. The worst part is not that it has come to this. The worst part is that so many people accept it as normal.
Does anyone really wonder why the Radical Islamicists believe that all they have to is nudge us a little, and we will topple over?
End result: cheap smoke detectors (and other products less than top of the line in their market) stop being marketed, and more people die from not having smoke detectors at all.
That’s our current system at work. Hurray for bureaucracy, bad laws, and selfish lawyers.
“40 years ago this case – as many others reported on this terrific board – would have been unthinkable, and the decision would have been widely condemned as scandalously wrong.”
40 yrs ago attorneys were not necessarily so greedy. No wait, that would take 4000 years right?
But hey they too need to make a living right? Just desire to be rich and electable within 10 yrs is all.
If there exists an industry that needs a clas action suit brought against it, the pharkin legal industry stands atop any other claims!