It had to happen! 50 lawsuits are pending...1.5mil awarded

Yeah, someone mentioned this before. What’s next? Suing car manufacturers because they didn’t include a governer that would prevent the car from going fast enough to get you hurt?

-- http://www.peteroxley.com -- http://north40studios.etsy.com --

Hopefully this will result in only licensed proffessionals owning saws. :D

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, Before you criticise some one, walk a mile in their shoes...then you will be a mile away and you have their shoes!

I should’ve sued the company that made my bicycle. Last time I crashed no airbag deployed at all.

-- Ed

That’s why 99% of lawyers give the others a bad reputation!

-- Dave; Lansing, Kansas

#@$%

-- Ohh mann...pancakes and boobies...I'll bet that's what Heaven is like! ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

I hope Ryobi is appealing this. Maybe the saw manufacturers should get together and establish a defense fund for this crap. Leave it up to the lawyers. No wonder the country is falling apart.

-- Wayne - Plymouth MN

What happened to taking responsibility for your own actions? Unless there is a severe quality issue with this particular saw?...it is well known that a saw is dangerous and capable of cutting through flesh…...If you buy and use a saw – you are taking your chances like anyone else.

I’m surprised that idiot did not sue god for making him so stupid that he would blame someone else for his own lack of intelligence….This kind of stuff is rediculous….and anyone that serves on a jury and awards these mental midgets money are just as bad as the plantiffs. Too many of them think that a company can afford to pay for the moron’s stupidity so they make rediculous awards like this. That is why there are so few manufacturers making good tools for reasonable money…it is also why most of them locate overseas. All woodworkers end up paying for this with high prices and lack of choices…we really need tort reform.

-- Woodworking.....My small slice of heaven!

It seems like the primary driving force behind this, and other similar, lawsuits … is the inventor of the SawStop technology.

It seems that he’s been trying to “force” the other manufacturers to pay him for his technology, and implement it across the industry.

It might be appropriate that some of this resentment be pointed toward him.

-- -- Neil

Whats next? A SawStop like device for handsaws?

-- Folly ever comes cloaked in opportunity!

Yes, its a bad thing! Its the government telling us what to buy. If I am concerned about an accident, then I buy the most safe tool out there which most likely now would be SawStop. If I think I can handle safety myself, then I have a choice of what to buy. Maybe we should demand that all saws come with a suit of armor too so we can stop kickback, which I bet occurs more often that a cut.

-- Wayne - Plymouth MN

Lawsuits like these are bogus. If the saw was not in compliance with the law or malfunctioned, fine, but the saw did what it was designed to do…cut. Don’t be stupid and sue over saws that cut or coffee that’s hot or some other product doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

But I’m glad I got a Sawstop. I doubt I’d have ever had an accident but shit happens and I like my fingers. Totally worth it. But, ‘worth it’ is a consumer decision, not a legal one.

-- "We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act but a habit." ---Aristotle

The fact that there are so many Lumberjocks who have table saw injury stories tells me all I need to know.

I know that I sure as hell don’t need a Sawstop.

-- Ohh mann...pancakes and boobies...I'll bet that's what Heaven is like! ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

I agree that we should make tools as safe as possible. Does that involve forcing every manufacturer to install Saw Stop like technology NO! As much as I respect and like Saw Stop, this is a choice that we as consumers make. This isn’t even an issue of ambulance chasing lawyers for me..even though it clearly is someone trying to cash in. It’s about us as a society refusing to take the blame for our own actions. From the time we are kids we are programmed to blame other people for our mistakes and shortcomings…”Billy pushed me that’s how the lamp got broken”..or “the teacher is a mean jerk that’s why I got a D”. Then when we become adults it still works for us..”McDonalds coffee was way too hot that’s why I got burned” not that you were trying to drive and drink coffee at the same time. This type of thinking has risen to an absurd level, with people blaming their violent and psychopathic behavior on the fact that they were “abused” as a child…with the term ‘abused” retaining all kinds of loose definitions. All the ridiculous lawsuits that get filed every day by unscrupulous lawyers and people seeing everything as a way to cash out….this country needs tort reform more than it needs health care reform.
This story reminds me of an interview I read a years ago in a woodworking magazine with the inventor of Saw Stop. He was saying he brought his idea to every major table saw manufacturer and they all told him the same thing..they didn’t want to put it on their saws because it would be admitting that a table saw is dangerous. Who doesnt know that a table saw is dangerous? Just standing next to one when it gets flipped on your own human instincts tell you that there is a risk of injury. Common sense…..seems it’s lacking and has been replaced by blame and litigation.

-- http://www.facebook.com/pages/DSO-Designs/297237806954248

”Don’t be stupid and sue over saws that cut or coffee that’s hot or some other product doing exactly what it is supposed to do.”

Please be careful when invoking the coffee/McDonald’s case.

The facts are VERY different from what everybody seems to think, and go a LONG way to explaining both the underlying lawsuit AND the award.

-- -- Neil

I am a huge fan of the SawStop technology. Can I afford a $3000 saw? No! Now has anyone sued because of an old saw that does not have a riving knife? I am fairly sure that the government has been involved in how manufacturers build the safety devices on these saws. So how can someone sue just because they are using a saw that does not have the technology that the government DOES NOT require the other manufacturers to use? This most likely will go to appeals and I would not be surprised to see it over turned, but, they have opened a big ol’ can of worms. Watch the price of power tools start to skyrocket! The market for older refurbished tools is going to blow up.

-- Branum