Comments on: August 30 roundup

By: Chris Hoey

Chris Hoey — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:17:58 +0000

20 plus years ago Woolworth opened a Burger King in Greenwich Village, to the dismay of its liberal neighbors. They succeeded in forcing its close (costing the jobs of the 5o employees, largely Black youths from Harlem), with the collusion of the NYC envronmental control board, on the grounds it emitted too much smoke from its grills, despite the presence of state of the art air scrubbers. The testimony that sealed its fate was that of an inspector whose “expert” testimony was he used an imaginary box pictured in the air, and estimating the amount of smoke in said box. Farcical, to say the least.

By: E-Bell

E-Bell — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:44:58 +0000

David, that case was featured here a few months ago:

http://overlawyered.com/2010/03/jury-maker-should-pay-1-5-million-for-selling-standard-tablesaw-design/

and follow-up here:

http://overlawyered.com/2010/07/sawstop-technology-contd/

By: Nobody Special

Nobody Special — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:45:31 +0000

BBQ does not violate civil rights:

http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=343792&paper=59&cat=104

By: David

David — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:30:21 +0000

I don’t know if you got the one a few months ago of the legal action involving tablesaws. A new inovation on tablesaws is being pushed that links the saw blade to a computer so that if your finger touches the blade, the saw shuts down. Sounds neat but its limits and faults are not well known and it is under patent to one individual who is trying to force the product on the industry. Recently an idiot took a saw and removed all safety aspects and had minor injury to his hand in the situation that anyone with sense knew would occur. The jury awarded a few million to the guy as the saw was not equiped with the new technology. I think the device is called SawStop if you want to look it up.