Warning Labels

9/15/2008 5:27 PM EDT

Do I pay attention to product warning labels?

I pay about as much attention to them as those EULA statements I must check I ACCEPT and AGREE before installing that software!

9/17/2008 10:23 AM EDT

I understand why, from a legal perspective, companies feel compelled to include these warnings. Unfortunately, the warnings imply that the customer is an idiot and can't be trusted to operate a simple radio without electrocuting themselves. So I'm thinking: maybe we should launch class-action suits against companies who insist on inundating us with such warnings. Their offense? Undermining our self-esteem. Yeah, that's it, we could claim psychological damage!

Kidding aside, I'm getting tired of the assumption that we live in a soceity of ninnies. If people were expected to accept the consequences of their actions, including the ill-advised ones, they'd start to behave more intelligently.

Also, the inclusion of warning labels seems so arbitrary. What, for example, could be more dangerous than equipping a person of poor judgment with a hammer and a box of nails? And yet, I didn't see a warning label the last time I bought either of these items.

- Paul

9/17/2008 7:06 PM EDT

Paul, when did you last buy a hammer or nails? Both come with (at least) a warning to wear eye protection, as both can chip. My last hammer had a label that covered most of one side of the handle.

Seriously, warning labels have one primary purpose: when some idiot does something stupid with a device (and they will), and then sues them manufacturer (and they will), then the manufacturer's lawyer can tell the jury "Well, we warned him not to do that, right here on page 3 of the user's manual." Then you hope that the jury will say "Well, he was warned not to do that, so we will only award him a small pile of money instead of a large pile of money."

The warning does not prevent the accident, since the idiot never reads it. The warning does help to limit the economic damages to the manufacturer, however.

My 21 inch 5 hp gas lawn mower contains a warning not to try to pick the mower up and use it as a hedge trimmer. Want to bet that some idiot (now known as "Stubby") tried to do just that??

9/18/2008 11:18 AM EDT

This is all about "due diligence" on the part of the manufacturer - covering your bases legally has become much more important than product innovation, user-friendly design, etc. Over the years I have been required to sit through several training classes on product liability. There really was a case when someone used a lawn mower as a hedge trimmer!

Here are good examples of why we need tort reform in the US. While there are plenty of legitimate product liability cases, as long as we have the contingency fee system, people will be encouraged to play the legal lottery with lawsuits resulting from their own stupid actions.

-Phil

9/18/2008 2:34 PM EDT

Litigious signifies a disposition to sue; a fondness for pursuit of litigation or lawsuits. The US is now up to our neck in lawyers who really need to sue someone to make a living. That is the true reason for the warnings on everthing, not that we are stupid - Or maybe we are stupid for having all of these parasites!

9/19/2008 10:56 AM EDT

dalinaz wrote, "My 21 inch 5 hp gas lawn mower contains a warning not to try to pick the mower up and use it as a hedge trimmer. Want to bet that some idiot (now known as "Stubby") tried to do just that??"

My former boss testified in a product liability case on this exact issue. It was actually Mr. AND Mrs. "Stubby," who picked up their rotary mower on either side of its deck. The Stubby Family prevailed, as apparently the court thought a reasonable person might use a rotary mower as a hedge trimmer unless cautioned not to.

9/19/2008 1:10 PM EDT

daleinz: I bought two boxes of prepackaged nails a couple of months ago, and they didn't have any warnings. But, then again, I live in Canada, which is somewhat less litigious a country than the US. Still, you've got me wondering: I'm going to visit my local hardware store to see if the hammers in Canada now come with labels like the one you mention -- I really hope the phenomenon (read "silliness") hasn't spread this far north.

Re the lawnmower-used-as-a-headtrimmer incident: The fact that a court ruled that this was a reasonable thing for people to do in the absence of a cautionary warning -- wow. It's sad when courts enable denial of personal responsibility.

9/19/2008 9:30 PM EDT

The warning labels that must appear on cigarettes in most of the world put the US warning to shame. All we can say is we were there first. (See the Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_messages)

As for the bandsaw that got you, Jack, it made me think of the refrain from a song by a group called the Young Adults that I heard in college:
"A saw don't know the diff'rence between a man and a piece of pine.
One mistake, that's all it takes, and folks just end up cryin'.
A million tears won't bring back your finger; they won't bring back your little boy.
So remember: a power tool is not a toy."

10/14/2008 8:10 AM EDT

A funny story regarding warning signs.

In the late 1970's I was in the Marine Corps as a radar technician stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Every year or so the military bases get reviewed by an Inspecting General, and this means that every site has to have all of its mandatory warning signs up-to-date. At the entrance to our facility, we had to post signs such as "radiation hazard", "electrical hazard", and "trip hazard" (because of stabilizing wires that were pegged into the ground). All in all, there were about a dozen signs mounted on the post that led into our facility.

The night before the Inspecting General was due to review our site, someone went out and posted one more sign at the bottom of the post: "sign hazard". The next morning, the Inspecting General and his entourage drove up, stopped at the post, and began checking off that we had each of the mandatory signs. When he got to the bottom of the post, he started laughing, turned his whole group around, and left without looking us over. We were puzzled at this behavior until we went out and looked at the signs on the post. At the end of the week we received the "results" of our review - "Outstanding"!