The Blue Collar Lawyer

A Safer Table Saw

Not just safer, but revolutionary: a saw that stops within five milliseconds of touching human flesh, turning an accident that would otherwise be an amputation into nothing more than a cut.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are an estimated 32,000 table-saw-related injuries a year, 3,000 of which result in amputations of fingers or entire hands, causing a nationwide economic loss of about $2 billion dollars a year.

So, naturally, every major power tool manufacturer has rushed to incorporate this technology into their table saws, or at least offer it as an option, right?

Wrong.

Why?   Because the law of most states requires that manufacturers make a product as safe as it can reasonably be.   Meaning, if there is an effective safety feature that could be incorporated into a device without making the device too expensive, and a company doesn't do so, that company is liable for injuries that could have been prevented had the safety feature been used.

Here's the problem (for power tool manufacturers): SawStop technology was invented in 1999, over the course of a mere two weeks, in an amateur woodworker's backyard.   In other words, SawStop technology isn't rocket science.   It's basic.   It could have been discovered, perfected, and incorporated into table saws as early as 1980.   If the power tool companies had only cared to invest some money figuring it out.   But they didn't.   And now some average guy has proven that a safer saw can be built for almost the same money as a traditional saw.   

So you see, if the power tool manufacturers adopt this technology, they'll be admitting that they screwed up--they'll be admitting that all their saws, for years, should have had this technology.  Which would mean a lot of people with missing fingers and hands would be coming after them, in court, seeking compensation for injuries that the power tool manufacturers could have prevented.   

Unfortunately (for the power tool industry) the cat is already out of the bag.   Stephen Gass, SawStop's inventor, after having his offer to sell his technology turned down by every major power tool manufacturer, decided to build and sell his safer saw himself.   Since November 2004, 600 SawStop saws have been sold to professional woodworkers and woodshops around the country.   At least five amputations have reportedly been avoided.   The technology is affordable, and it works.

So what can you do?   Write to your favorite tool company and tell them you want a safer saw.    Write to the Consumer Products Safety Commission and urge them to make SawStop technology mandatory on all table saws.   And if you know someone who's been seriously injured by a table saw manufactured after the year 2000, they might be entitled to compensation for their loss of earning power and pain and suffering.   Tell them about this article, and tell them to contact a products liability lawyer in their area.   To date, at least six lawsuits have already been filed by injured woodworkers against various power tool manufacturers for not making the safer saw that Stephen Gass tried to tell them about back in the summer of 2000.

Ferrer misses the mark on NYC housing

No one denies that NYC could use more affordable housing.  Democratic front-runner Fernando Ferrer, however, seems to be off the deep end on how to accomplish that noble objective.

His solution?  Jack property taxes $1 billion dollars over 10 years to fund the creation of 167,000 public housing units.

Dumb.

Why?  Because landlords pass the cost of maintaining property onto their renters.  If property taxes rise, landlords will raise rents, thereby displacing those middle-class New Yorkers who are already hanging by a thread. 

So in other words, what Ferrer wants to do is raise rents on middle-class New Yorkers to fund the creation of public housing for those same middle-class New Yorkers who can longer afford their apartments because their rent was raised to build public housing.

Huh?

Ikea meets Red Hook

If you live within the gravitational pull of NYC you probably know that Ikea is currently clearing land on the blighted-yet-historic Red Hook waterfront for construction of a big-box store. 

The proposal has brought years of controversy, pitting Red Hook's two dominant cultures against each other: residents of the public Red Hook Houses, who account for approximately 70% of the area's population and much of its unemployment vs. the bohemians.

Here's the irony of the conflict: ask yourself, "what sits on much of the Red Hook waterfront?"  Old decaying boxes (i.e., abandoned warehouses and factories) that employ nobody, right?  Now, what does Ikea propose to build in their place?  New shiny boxes (i.e., an Ikea store) that will employ hundreds, some of whom will come from the Red Hook neighborhood itself. 

In other words, in a raw physical sense, an Ikea store will be no different than what currently sits on the waterfront--big ugly boxes.  But at least this big ugly box will create economic prosperity rather than havens for drug deals. 

Sorry Bohemia.  Its a no-brainer.  Big boxes that employ people win out over big boxes that employ nobody.  Yeah, sure, Red Hook will probably become a lot less "hip" in the next decade.  But its a small price to pay for allowing a few more city residents to claw their way out of poverty and into self-sufficiency, while continuing to reclaim Brooklyn's once proud waterfront. 

What the heck is a blue collar lawyer?

"Rather than being a populist advance, blawgs are often outlets for rarefied material," writes Lincoln Caplan in the most recent issue of Legal Affairs.

The Blue Collar Lawyer is about to change that.

Stay tuned as we bring populism back to the practice of law.