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I don't know if anyone else saw this decision against Ryobi. It got me to thinking, if these suits catch on, home woodworking is in trouble. Or we may have to go back to hand tools.

Funny thing is I nearly lost two fingers to this saw. But I only blame myself.

Interesting decision.... IIRC I read somewhere that statistically speaking more injury accidents result from table saws than any other commonly found power tool in the shop...

SawStop's technology is impressive but if I understand it correctly there is still nothing to overcome the possibility of kick-back which also is responsible for injuries. Still stopping the saw prior to dismemberment is huge progress toward a safer tool.

I like the first comment:

Sweet, when the free market doesn't work in your favor and people don't want to pay more for your product, leave it to an attorney/inventor to work to force it on people.

Anyone that buys a table saw knows its inherently dangerous. If they want a SawStop they can buy a sawstop. This company is moving from a cool local success story to a business trying to profit off extorsion.

I can see it coming. Low on bucks, go get a table saw, mangle hand or whatever and get the money. Just think, of it, spent all the money on these tools and woods, went broke in lutherie and now a way out. As of Sunday, Free health care to boot.

Seriously. Folks may think I am kidding or a jerk. I spent a lot of years as a cop and insurance fraud investigator. I seen a woman with sprained ankle get legs amputated for large insurance settlement. I seen a guy an attempted suit and it went long into the process of a man having a friend shoot him and then claim firearm malfunction. I could go on. So don't think there will be those who won't cut off fingers, hands or whatever on a table saw, then some will do band saws, then routers, shapers etc. Their and lot of others thought process is it big companies and their insurance will pay for it. What they don't think of insurance companies will make up for it and fraud (not all of it fraud) by home, auto, health (well used to be) and most of all business liability policies. If your a pro, look for the increase if you have tools in the shop.

I really appreciate the SawStop technology, but I mean... Jeez. When we gonna start taking responsibility for our own actions. I figure, I cut my hand off on the bandsaw & it's no-ones fault but mine.
Tablesaws aren't "safe". We aught to understand that & take all the necessary precautions. And know that even at that, someday it's likely to bite you.
With luck, you don't lose any big pieces & learn from the near misses.
When are we going to stop selling sharpening stones because they can make our chisels dangerously sharp?

Wait... you mean I coulda' owned delta after cutting off my index finger in the bandsaw???

... and what's this responsibility thingy?? Is that a new luthier tool?

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

The court case seems a bit odd to have gone that way, but all chop saws must be supplied with a clamp to hold the stock, another lawsuit. DIYers and hobbyists should have the option to use what ever saw they choose, but pro shops and contractors with employees should get insurance rates adjusted for the use of a saw stop type tool. Another question would be how many mangled on a table saw have insurance or a way to pay for the injury, and how many become a burden on the system, like cigarettes, you pay at the pump for what you know will be unrecovered health care cost.

Thanks for posting the article, interesting.
Rob

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I think it is seldom the tool often it is the loose nut in front of the tool . Tool safety is your responsibility but get a lawyer and bingo . It is a tool designed to cut wood . The saw stop technology has been around a long time but it is still safe habits that will protect you best. Don't take chances

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
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You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

If you even have an inkling that something might be dangerous, IT IS, so don't do it. Find a safe way!

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I think it's a sad commentary on how litigious this country has gotten. I don't have Stan T's actual
experience with the perps, but I've read often enough about insurance fraud to agree 100% with
him. I believe in individual responsibility. If I hurt myself by not knowing how to use a tool, or by
seeing a dangerous situation and going ahead because it's expedient, then I take responsibility
for that...

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

The saw stop is a great innovation but i do not like the inventor. This man tried to lobby the federal government to make it mandatory for other manufactures to use his innovations. Meaning everyone would have to purchase his technology. Being a Doctor if he is such a concerned man why not give the technology away for free? Think of all the accidents you would prevent. Another thing i don't like about saw stop is the false sense of safety that it will give users that will lead to carelessness. I also don't have to much faith in electronic components when my life is at stake. What happens when a 5 cent capacitor starts leaking and the safety system fails without you evening knowing it?...Mike

Robbie O'Brien, have you notified your students that they may develop WAS after completing your courses? Lance and Brock... have you added disclaimers and reaffirmed each with every member and every lurker?

Do your guitars make people drool and sometimes faint from sheer beauty and sound? (we hope, right?)

These are all examples of suits that may seem ludicrous today. Live long enough and we'll see.

Xxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxx xxx xx xxx xxxxxxxxxx

Oops... my attorney just told me to x out the other remarks for liability purposes. God forbid we express our opinions... in 'free' societies. Someone could have their feelings hurt.

Guitars are cool ... and so are mandolins.... there, I said it anyway!!! Take that semi-representative pseudo-establishment!!! Bring on the lawsuits!

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

I'd rather have a table saw than a radial arm! At least the blade is stationary on a table saw...

Does this mean that you guys are not going to stand in line to purchase a SawStop saw???? Bright guy aren't I.....

I know I'm going to be the odd man out on this.

I believe we are all personally responsible to act in our own best interest and act as safely as possible. But I also believe that corporations and design engineers have a responsibility to make their products as safe as they reasonably can, especially for a known dangerous product like a table saw with a long history of injuries. Fourth quarter profits don't get to dictate what is reasonably safe and what isn't, accountants don't get to do a cost analysis on what your finger/life is worth.

The Sawstop technology is a multi-million dollar idea and Steve Gass deserves to be a rich man because of it one way or another. It has the potential to save appendages, lives, livelihoods, and billions of dollars in medical expenses. Table saw companies get sued all the time and their defense has always been (and usually rightly so) that they were using "state of the art" safety features on their saw at the time of manufacture. You can bet that table saw manufacturers were hoping that if they all ignored him, he would just go away and the idea would fade into obscurity. One table saw on the market with that feature would mean trouble for all the rest of them, so they all stood their ground. Do you think Gass really wanted to start his own company manufacturing expensive machinery competing head to head with companies like Delta, Ryobi, Powermatic, etc? My guess is that the manufacturers didn't think he would or could do it.

The thing is, if manufacturers keep dragging their heels, when they know there's a better/safer way, then gov't will eventually step in and require this feature by law in the interest of the public good. If they'd bought into it early on they could have figured out how to do it cheaply and we'd probably all have the option to buy a saw with this feature for under $1000.

A couple other things:
- Judgements like the Ryobi case usually get appealed and greatly reduced, but that doesn't make for sexy headlines.
- Lawsuits like this happen all the time that are thrown out or don't result in a judgement, which is also not deemed newsworthy.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I busted my thumb yesterday because I repetedly hit it with a hammer. Any lawyers out there who want to represent me against the hammer company? We'll make a fortune!

As Forest Gumps momma says, "Stupid is as stupid does"

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I think the kind of "doctor" he is known as a PHD, not medical doc. As to kickback, I thought splitters, riving knives, and pawls did a good job of minimizing that. A sawstop with a riving blade is amazingly safe. But what happens if the system fails? This is a big concern. No machine is 100% reliable. And the more that get out there in the market, the more likely we will see a failure. And, excessive safety features promote riskier behavior (like cars!)

SawStop is great technology. This technology should not be forced upon the market - it should be offered as a safer alternative. If allowed to take place, market forces are a much-preferred alternative to the ramifications of this stupid lawsuit. Gass and his investors would stand to gain millions, and life would be good for all.

Instead, companies and consumers are being forced into the situation by unadulterated greed.

Presently, there are a lot of folks, including myself, that would buy into the technology, provided it was offered in an even-handed way. However, lawsuits put a bad taste in peoples mouths. The SawStop/Gass motto seems to be "Coercion by any means necessary".

And lawyers wonder why they get a bad rap.

No, Jonathan, you are not alone. For all its flaws, our legal system will typically culminate in a reasonable decision. However, the process takes time and our media need to sell soap now, so you rarely see the actual results of the "frivolous" lawsuits that garner early headlines.

There are, of course, people who will try to cheat any system. Cutting off ones legs in an attempt to defraud money over an ankle sprain seems hard to imagine, but I guess anything is possible. I'm not sure where the pending health care bill fits in this discussion. However, if you measure the litigiousness of Western societies you'll find that the U.S. is the sole country without universal coverage, so perhaps there is some correlation after all.

For the record, I am neither personally nor professionally associated with the insurance industry or legal system. I'm just a guy who has found that when everyone shouts and points in one direction, the truth is usually hiding around the opposite corner.

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George :-)

Odds are this will get overturned on appeal. I cant imagine it would be hard to build a defense. Question 1 "Did you read the manual that said to keep your fingers away from the blade?..." Question 2 "If you wanted a saw with flesh detection technology, why did you buy a Saw Stop?" "Oh, you didn't want to spend $3k on a tablesaw?"

If you don't want to spend $3k on a table saw, don't put your fingers anywhere near the blade. Simple enough.

Its truly scary where were headed.

I want to weigh in on this topic.

How is the company any more "liable" for not installing Stephan Gass' safety device than the table saw owner? The technology could have been purchased by either of them.......but it seems the owner didn't want to spend the money and chose to take the risk. If you make your bed, lie in it, and don't blame anyone else when the risk you've chosen doesn't pay off.

One day, a capicitor will go bad and this safety device will fail. Then somone will be suing Stephan Gass' company. They'll investigate and find he saved a penny per capicitor in a recent purchase due to a good purchasing agent......then blame him for cutting costs at the expense of product safety (and Mr. Gass may not even be aware he received a good deal on capacitors). Then he will get to enjoy shelling out $5 or $6 million even though the accident could have been prevented by following good safety practices.

Lack of personal responsibility and our litegous (sp?) society is pushing us the wrong direction. We may all feel the repercussions of this lawsuit. Won't it be fun to pay $2,000+ for a tablesaw........else you aren't allowed to have a new one? Is that freedom when someone else makes your decision's for you?

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Sounds like another idiot trying to get money for his own mistake to me. I really do get annoyed by people who are like this if I am honest. We see it on the TV all the time now for accident claiming companies; "I fell off my ladder and broke my arm, and after suing the manufacturer for £5000 I feel much better!" It's like saying "I fell over at work and broke my leg, after suing the company who has provided food, warmth and medication for my for my family for 30 years..."

Unless the saw blade defectively came away from the tool and cut the guys hands off in a manner which he could never control (obviously if that happened) it is pretty much his own fault. Isn't this why table saws always say "use all safety equipment provided" and you should use something other than your hand to push the material through the saw?



End rant.

OK, I can no longer resist, but I'll keep it short.

Being "responsible" for yourself: great concept. I guess what some people mean by this is paying the cost for your own mistakes. All well and good, but the primary point isn't who pays the medical bills. It's the finger. Humans tend to systematically underestimate risk. Do careless, stupid, tired, hurried, etc. people deserve to lose appendages as part of the idea of being "responsible?" Part of the point of lawsuits is financial compensation for injured people. But another part is keeping those fingers attached by providing an incentive to manufacturers for making things more safe. Pretty roundabout, inefficient way of doing that, no? But the alternative is more government regulation. More efficient, keeps the playing field level, distributes the cost of accidental events more evenly. So if you don't like the use of lawsuits as a way of policing unsafe products, why aren't you cheering for more regulation? or do you really think those stupid, tired, etc. people (you would never be one of them, of course) deserve what they get?

Back to who pays the medical bills. If you don't like people suing when they are injured and can't pay the medical bills, why aren't you cheering for a good single payer system? Our medical payment system and out tort system go hand in hand. It's no coincidence that the rest of the industrialized world doesn't have the same litigiousness over personal injuries.

OK, one more thing. There has been a relentless propaganda campaign over the past 40 years or so by the insurance companies to promote the idea that juries get afflicted with group insanity while under the influence of evil Svengali-like lawyers. The real numbers and real outcomes (even of some popularly well-known lawsuits) don't support this. But repeat anything long enough, especially when you have a good villain, and a simplistic explanation for a complex problem, and people will jump on board. The insurance companies and their whores in the political system are in this for the long haul.

Rant over.

Oh, one more thing. I do agree that the SawStop folks appear to be engaged in economic rent-seeking.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

My main issue is people will become too afraid to make or do anything in fear of being sued. It's like crashing your car through your own fault and taking Karl Benz' family descendants to court for inventing the modern motor car.

I know someone who sued her employer for damages after slipping over at work even though CCTV showed the reason why she slipped was because of the cardboard box she didn't dispose of correctly. It's just madness.

I work in a pretty dangerous job, but I would never take my employer to court if I got injured, unless it was because of the failing of my employers to protect me properly. However if I get injured because of my own fault it wouldn't ever go through my mind. It's the same with the tools I use, if I manage to cut off my arm with a chop saw because I put my arm between the blade & the work surface well, tough luck for me. However if a new blade shattered, the electric switch electrocuted me or any other fault of the manufacturer injured me then I would of course.

I'm glad I watched that video. I use my table saw to cut hot dogs so I guess a saw stop is out of the question for me.

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