iPod lawsuit
 

Give me five minutes in a dark alley with these morons. :mad:


iPod User Sues Over Potential Hearing Problems

POSTED: 11:27 am EST February 2, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO -- A Louisiana man claims in a lawsuit
that Apple's iPod music player can cause hearing loss
in people who use it.

Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices
since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million
in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can
produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume
that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the
sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to
the complaint.

The iPod players are "inherently defective in design
and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate
warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,"
according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S.
District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John
Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

The suit, which Patterson wants certified as a
class-action, seeks compensation for unspecified
damages and upgrades that will make iPods safer.
Patterson's suit said he bought an iPod last year, but
does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from
the device.

Patterson does not know if the device has damaged his
hearing, said his attorney, Steve W. Berman, of
Seattle. But that's beside the point of the lawsuit,
which takes issue with the potential the iPod has to
cause irreparable hearing loss, Berman said.

"He's bought a product which is not safe to use as
currently sold on the market," Berman said. "He's
paying for a product that's defective, and the law is
pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective
product they have a duty to repair it."

An Apple Computer Inc. spokeswoman, Kristin Huguet,
declined to comment.

Although the iPod is more popular than other types of
portable music players, its ability to cause
noise-induced hearing isn't any higher, experts said.

"We have numerous products in the marketplace that
have the potential to damage hearing," said Deanna
Meinke, an audiology professor at the University of
Northern Colorado. "The risk is there but the risk
lies with the user and where they set the volume."

The Cupertino-based company ships a warning with each
iPod that cautions "permanent hearing loss may occur
if earphones or headphones are used at high volume."

Apple was forced to pull the iPod from store shelves
in France and upgrade software on the device to limit
sound to 100 decibels, but has not followed suit in
the United States, according to the complaint. The
headphones commonly referred to as ear buds, which
ship with the iPod, also contribute to noise-induced
hearing loss because they do not dilute the sound
entering the ear and are closer to the ear canal than
other sound sources, the complaint states.

In a related article, fire was sued for causing burns, and water is in litigation for making people wet.

Also, the Surgeon General warned today that repeatedly shoving butcher knives into your scalp can be harmful to your health.

<enditem/>

Maybe my parents should sue Crate and Fender for creating the Bass and Amp that almost made half my family deaf when I was a teenager...

Things like this make me laught at the human race or parts of it anyway.

People do the daftest things.

Spill hot coffee on yourself and sue Mc Donalds (that same person would have probably sued if it was cold coffee)

Sue Apple for "hearing loss" correct me if im wrong but i know my 2 iPods have volume control? maybe he should sue the government fo his lack of education or his parents for not being born with any logic?

Sue a cigarette company for getting cancer? i mean WTF its not like no one knows that cigarettes cause cancer its not some top secret bit of info that is hidden from the public.

People sueing fast food places because the food made them fat, well a balanced diet is not a big mac in each hand and a supersized diet cola? which brings me to somehting else, how is the diet cola supposed to help when you eat enough food for a family in one go all by yourself?

whats next? i know i will go buy a new 5.7 Hemi Jeep and then sue Jeep because it uses too much fuel and damages the environment

Or maybe i can sue Millers for making me drunk and having a hangover surely i can sue for head ache tablets and loss of productivity?

Here's a quote --- Stupid is what stuip does --Forest Gump

We seem to be in an era characterized "It's not my fault" - a combination of (a) not taking responsibility for your own actions, and (b) a compulsion to fix blame for your own stupidity on others and then seek revenge in court as a means of "proving" that the mis-directed blame is where it belongs.

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate...

All kidding aside, hearing loss is an insidious beast. Even a "comfortable" sound volume can be enough to permanently destroy the cilia in your ears that make hearing possible.

Sure, iPods and other portable listening devices have volume controls. But the point of the lawsuit is that the maximum volume of these devices is enough to cause permanent hearing loss.

Generally speaking, I agree that litigation has replaced common sense. But some of the examples presented here are weak.

Sure, one can expect hot coffee to be hot. But cigarette manufacturers actually did hide the truth from smokers for decades, even promoted tobacco as a healthy product. Not to mention that that ***** was shoved down our servicemen's throats during the second world war.

Suing fire for burning? A facetious example, to be sure, but a more appropriate comparison in this case would be a heater manufacturer whose products can reach temperatures that could start fires. Sure, they may argue, there's a knob that controls the temperature. It's just common sense not to set your space heater to 200 degrees fahrenheit. Right?

I know of a corporation where it's a firing offense to remove your hearing protection (expensive noise cancellation earphones) in the presence of a very loud process - completely appropriate - and the union agrees not to contest that because there is provision to leave the noisy space to scratch your ear. In that example, the person exposed has no choice about the noise level OR the solution.

Contrast that, however, with a pop concert. Contrast that with listening to a powerful home stereo setup. Contrast that with a powerful sound system in a car (the type you can hear booming three lanes over and four cars back). Who should take responsibility for those exposures - they are all voluntary.

Why does Apple make it possible to make the sound loud? Here are a few reasons - if you don't use the standard ear buds, your replacement may not be as efficient; if you are already hearing impaired, you may need that much volume; etc.

But these are the perfect examples of when a suit is appropriate and when it's not. In the first case, everyone knows that the coffee is hot - that's the customary way to serve it. In the second the manufacturer lied and is clearly responsible.

And in this particular instance there are standards to defend the user. That's what codes are for; that's what UL does.

This argument is a typical "threshold" argument. No matter where you place a threshold, you can be sure someone is standing on it - where do you draw the line on personal responsibility? Clearly, where the user has no means of determining the danger, like your heater example or in home construction, wiring, etc., then standards must be applied. But where "common sense" (not so common, I guess) would tell the average person that they might harm themselves and they do it anyway, then it strikes me that the blame is theirs.

I read this as a footer in an email once (can't recall the author):

I agree completely. And, in my opinion, this is one such case where the average consumer is not aware of the risk. Like I originally posted, hearing loss is an insidious condition. Maximum sound volume may "feel" comfortable to the user even though it is killing those dear cilia. Does the average person know that the ringing sound you hear after a loud concert/iPod/booming car speakers is actually the sound of hearing loss? It may "feel" as if one's hearing has returned to normal once the ringing stops, but in fact it has suffered irreparable damage.

On a related note, Pete Townshend of The Who is campaigning right now for hearing loss awareness for this very reason. He attributes his permanent tonitis on the sound volume in the headphones he wore during recording sessions.

Ultimately, I don't think that this case is comparable to ones that result in warnings like: Do Not Operate this Toaster Oven in the Shower.

It's unfortunate that everyone uses this example, as there's a lot more to the story than people assume. It wasn't frivolous. See, McD's served their coffee about 20 degrees over industry standard to discourage people coming back for more. They saved I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing this. When you spill normally-hot coffee you get first degree burns. This woman sufferred second and third degree burns because the coffee wasn't just "hot," it was purposely near boiling temperature. McD's had been warned about this many times before and had several incidents like it before.

The iPod loudness issue is silly on a technical level because you can't predict what headphones the user will use. I bet if you turned down the sound limit in match with the original headphones, my Etymotic ER-6i in-ear phones would still be way too loud. Others may be less efficient, and too quiet.

Right now I have a real annoyance with my Motorola Bluetooth headset because it won't go loud enough with my new phone. There's a safety limit--an artificial one--which is not compatible with my latest phone.

As a person missing quite a few of those "dear cilia" with mild tinitus to boot**, I suppose a warning is reasonable. The lawsuit isn't. No damage is alleged or proven.

I grew up in an era (the 40's and 50's) where no one paid much attention to sound-level induced hearing loss, flew propellor aircraft for several years that made a lot of noise, lived for a while near a NYC Elevated Train, and worked extensively with production equipment.

Even with all that, I can still hear what's going on around me and only miss high frequency clicks, occasional whispers, etc. An old standard for hearing loss used to be whether you could hear the flyback transformer in a TV set (15,750 Hz). Most kids could, I can't. Don't know whether it still makes an audible sound because by middle age, most folks can't hear it any more and at 68 I sure can't.

I know little about electronics... is there a way for a device to detect the impedance of the headphones/speaker/pre-amp plugged into it?

Lots of ways. Most don't do it.

I think it is. If you can't make the connection between loud noises and hearing loss, you're even less likely to make a connection between toasters, electricity and water. What's next? Do all roads need warning signs explaining that you should look both ways before crossing?

Impedance yes, but that's not very useful. There's a lot more involved that can't be measured. Overall sensitivity, sensitivity at the most dangerous frequencies, the location of the speaker (in ear, outside ear), etc.

Right on - the big deal is efficiency. Not all audio devices were created equal in converting electrical power to sound power, usually sacrificing efficiency to get better fidelity by not driving the magnetics too hard. Resistance only measures what's going on on the electrical side and at the power levels we're talking about, impedance matching isn't a big deal.

If the average person made the connection between loud noises and hearing loss, then the average person would wear earplugs to a loud concert. The average person wouldn't have their iPod set so that I can hear them two rows down on the subway.

In other words, it is sometimes difficult for the average person to even detect that they are damaging their hearing to begin with. If there were such a thing as "smart headphones" or a system in which the device could detect the maximum acceptable noise level based on the output device plugged into it (hence my earlier question), then at least people could be warned with a signal of some sort that their hearing is at risk.

Signs telling us to look both ways? Not necessary in a society in which that safety tip is drilled into us at an early age. The "keep the volume down" safety tip, on the other hand, is not.

Ultimately, I'm under the impression that this lawsuit is not about punishing Apple so much as drawing attention to a large and growing problem that the average person is not aware of.

Right on. Also, it depends on the source material. Some vlogs or podcasts are recorded with an audio level well below other more professionally recorded material, probably because the amateur didn't know to use levels compression or a closer, better mike. I need to turn it up to hear it at a normal level. Would mandatory limiting also make it harder to hear low-volume material properly?

The headphones do make a difference, and the iPod bundled earbuds are not good. Too much leakage and low quality. I switched to in-ear headphones, because they sound so much better while blocking out exterior sounds. The net effect is that with the bundled iPod headphones I feel I have to turn up the volume to compensate for both the uneven response and the exterior sounds. That is bad, especially in a noisy environment such as an airplane. With in-ear, frequency response into the bass is so much more even and exterior sounds blocked so much more that I can actually turn down the volume and still feel like I'm hearing good sound. Being able to turn down the volume due to better headphones makes me feel more comfortable with the use of the iPod.

There's a law on the books in England making it illegal to drive a motorcar on the streets without a flag man walking ahead. (Since you're not allowed to walk on a motorway (turnpike), everyone flaunts it.)

The universality of "look both ways" drilled into us as kids by every adult relative didn't stop some of my friends from being hit by cars. When the kid in question had just dashed into the street from between two parked cars, the driver was hardly at fault, and neither was the car manufacturer. Cities didn't revert to the requirement for a flag man leading the way.

A large sign carved into every iPod warning about hearing loss at high volume would be ignored by many and make the iPod ugly. It's only benefit would be to reduce the liklihood of lawsuits.

In short, I agree with CAlvarez.

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

Yeah, that is.

Back to the original topic...is it me, or is this type of don't-take-any-responsibility-but-blame-it-on-others (in a legal venue) much more prevalent in the US than anywhere else?

This isn't a rhetorical question, i am genuinely curious.

It is said by many outside the USA that American society is the most litigeous in the world. The ratio of Engineers to Lawyers in the US and Europe a few years ago were reciprocals. Gotta tell you something.

Think about child-proof caps on things. A lawyer's invention, not an engineer's. With arthritis in my hands, I get my grandsons to open them for me.

Interesting altruistic thought.

I though an under the impression this is a case of going after a company that is making boat loads of money of a product and lawyers telling the person/people that these are the ones to get it from.

Why am I so cynical? Well, if it was truly about a growing problem, Sony, Panasonic, Rio, and anyone who makes a device that a person can connect headphones to would also be named in the suit because the last time I checked none of these had warning labels about how prolonged use can damage hearing.

Oh yeah, and if I can hear your ipod while I have mine on with ear buds and you are on the other end of the the subway car I think that is part of the Darwin Theory is some twisted way.

That's absurd. Warn the average person who is playing his iPod too loud for his hearing and he'll probably turn it up so he can't hear you. It isn't about warning them. They either know or should know about the problem. They're just dumb enough to think it won't happen to them.

Look both ways may have been drilled into you, but people are killed or injured all the time from crossing without looking. Surely they need a warning too? The fact is, there are nearly an infinite number of ways to hurt yourself in this world and it isn't possible to warn against all of them.

The most we can do is require manufacturers to provide a product that when used as they direct (as Apple has done) will not harm us. The reality is that we don't even require that much. If we did, the cigarette makers would be out of business.

Absolutely. It's called thinning the herd, and I have no problem with it.

And I'm under the impression that if the lawyers wanted to go after boatloads of money they would name as many defendants as possible. Besides, part of this lawsuit is about the iPod ear buds which are apparently less efficient at reducing the harmful effects of noise.

Only one person in my example has ear buds on.

To be sure, there are many people who flout the law, warnings and safety devices. Somewhere out there, there may very well be someone making toast in the shower as I write this.

But we are not talking about those who disobey traffic signals, don't buckle up or use toasters in showers. We're talking about average people who do heed warnings, laws and safety devices. And my point is that "loud" is a subjective term in terms of our perceptions, and an objective term in terms of hearing loss. And the average person does not realize that what they think is a normal, comfortable sound volume level may in fact be destroying their hearing.

Exactly. This is the point of the lawsuit... that the iPod, when used as directed, can harm us.

I always get a kick out of social Darwinism, as smug a belief system as any other. To be sure, the number one cause of death in the world is stupidity. But the logical, extreme -- and absurd -- conclusion is to do away with any sort of safety devices, laws and warnings and let the stupid drop like flies.

No we aren't. The warning is there, so by definition we're talking about people who ignore it. Sorry Reacher, but you're reaching. :D
No it cannot. Once again, the warning is there. Since we are directed to avoid playing loud music, it cannot harm us when used as directed.
No post I've read has advocated any such thing. It is entirely reasonable however, to do away with warnings that any reasonably intelligent adult should be aware of. Hearing damage due to loud noise is well documented. As an example, Sony faced a similar frivolous lawsuit over the original Walkman. Certainly by now it ranks up there with looking both ways before crossing as a common sense, basic knowledge sort of thing.

I have a 2G iPod. I believe it had several warnings about playing at elevated volumes in the instructions and in various places on the packaging. It sounds to me like someone is just trying to make a quick buck.

Perhaps I am reaching. I am playing devil's advocate, after all. :)

Now, please define "loud music". What volume setting on one's iPod makes music "loud"? What setting is loud enough to destroy one's hearing after otherwise "normal" usage?

Like almost everything else these days, there's a web site devoted to that topic.

And like everything else, it is each individual's responsibility to know how much is too much. If you stare into the Sun, you can't blame anyone but yourself when you go blind.

That's the sort of absolute example that drew me into this topic to begin with. I believe it was something along the lines of "let's sue fire for being hot".

A better example is, why not let people decide how many prescription pills are necessary to make themselves feel better? Why not just print a warning on the label, "Don't take too many pills"? Does this belong in the "like everything else" category?

Ultimately, I agree with the general gist of this topic, which is: people (particularly in North America) need to take back responsibility for their own actions. Knowledge is power, power is responsibility (thank you, Stan Lee), ergo knowledge is responsibility. But in order to achieve a responsible nation, we need to increase nation's knowledge. Vague warnings are not enough.

Thanks for the link, NovaScotian.

It absolutely is. It's been said many times that the clueless iPod user is the perfect mugger's target. They possess a valuable item and they are oblivious to their surroundings. In the wilderness, that's called "prey," or more precisely, "dinner."

But if knowledge is responsibility, and I agree that it is, then we are all responsible for our own knowledge. The way to increase the nation's knowledge is to hold individuals accountable for their lack of it. Lawsuits like this do exactly the opposite.

There's a more important "survival of the fittest" impact here, literally. Kids with iPod blaring don't hear traffic sounds. Both my wife and I have had the experience of iPodders standing behind us while we started the engine in a parking lot. My car's not noisy, but they didn't hear it. I also watched a young lady ignore a blaring horn as she stepped out from between two cars.

Penalizing ignorance does not raise awareness. The way to increase a nation's knowledge is to educate the nation.

Arguable and not likely proveable one way or the other. One could compare the iPod lawsuit with Ralph Nader's early campaign against the auto manufacturers. In fact, many of the arguments presented here were and are used against seatbelt legislation, e.g. "people wearing seatbelts will just drive more aggressively".

No one is talking about penalizing ignorance, but rewarding it does not raise awareness. It encourages the lazy and makes educating more difficult.

A more apt comparison would be families suing auto makers when a relative dies in a high speed crash. Car makers urge people to follow the speed limits. They don't set speed limits and they don't tell you what they are. It's up to you to know what they are, and the car makers can't be held responsible if you don't.

Agree. And to carry it further, they don't put speed limiters on cars either.

Indeed... And going the same way... Some one who works ina garage and smells car fumes all day and all the toxins that go with it (or even just working in a smoggy downtown area) may die of cancer at lets say 45. If his family would sue the Oil companies for distributing a toxic product without labeling the fact that when burning it there are toxic fumes or the car maker for not making their car exhausts non-toxic and not warning people
would be thrown out of court very fast because the companies can't be heald resoponsible for every single little think that people do with them...
I know some one who chocked on a pice of bread and died from it... Did his family sue the bread company for this ? No one would think of it !

So for the iPod, since there are ample warnings writen all over the documentation that comes with it, its even streching the whole concept of imputability to a point where it pretty much becomes an obscenity !
Why is it that other companies cannot get sued anymore (the old McD example where now it does state that the stuff is hot and may cause burns if you spill it on you is a good one for that- thanks Calvarez for the complete info on this) because they did put warning labels and disclaimers on their products but Apple can be ? Realy curious how some one could justify that one. A company can't realistically get sued either because you can't read the warning or didn't read it. If that's the case now adays then how many people would sue kitchen knife companies do you think :eek:

Personally, I'm sick and tired of seeing warnings on my fresh chicken about how I "must wash my hands after handling," cautions that my hot coffee "may be hot," statements that my cleanser is "not for internal consumption" and instructions on my box of toothpicks! It's too bad we have to cater to the idiots of the world.

But some can be amusing. My favorite is the warning on windshield sunscreens: "Do not use while driving." I may be biased though, since I heard this exchange as we were putting ours up in a parking lot one day:

Woman1: "What's that?"
Woman2: "It's to block the sun so the car doesn't overheat."
Woman1: "But how do you see?"

I suppose that since she was smart enough to ask the question, she wouldn't actually earn a Darwin Award ( http://www.darwinawards.com/ ) using one, but it's still funny.

This isn't catering to the idiots of the world at all - It's recognizing that those words will avoid lawsuits. Modern packaging is done by lawyers to avoid the predation of other lawyers.

So now what? Here we have a case where the lawyers included the correct wording, but some dirtbag lawyer found a way to sue anyway. Is there anyway we could all get together and sue the dirtbag lawyer? I'd toss a few dollars into that suit.

I've run out of juice on this topic... hopefully here is a graceful way to exit.

http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/760.html

I don't get it. Is this suit actually happening or is it only being talked about? I can't possibly imagine what kind of judge would let apple lose. I can't even fathom what the prosecutor's case is. As stated, there is already a warning saying it may damage your hearing.

For reference, out of the ipod manual, safety and cleaning chapter.

They don't define "safe" I guess. But ipod does have a volume bar, so if it's max or near max it's probably unsafe.