Friday, March 26, 2010
Court Documents: Osorio Wasn't Using the Guard or Rip Fence
Popular Woodworking: "If you're a woodworker, you know about the landmark lawsuit – Carlos Osorio vs. One World Technologies Inc. et al – and about the $1.5 million dollar jury award. Discussions, both for and against the verdict, have been ongoing since the jury decided that One World Technologies (known to us as Ryobi) was at fault. However what most people don't know are the actual facts of this injury. How did Osorio cut his hand? What injuries did he sustain?"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Everything in this article just screams safety precautions gone unheeded. All of the little things, like the saw's height, the size of the piece he was trying to cut, and how he was approaching the tool should indicate to anyone that knows how to use a saw like this that he is lucky this hadn't happened to him before. Just because it works for you and you've done every other piece perfectly fine, you should be able to comprehend that the saw kicking back at you and refusing to cut your piece indicates some issue on the carpenter's fault.
As badly as I feel about this man getting hurt, he's lucky that it wasn't worse and hadn't happened before.
Stories like this always make me wonder exactly what a person was taught about the tools they use, and if they every really got any form of training with them. Injuries are a part of shop work, but does a really good job of illustrating an injury that could easily be avoided if proper safety steps had been taken. The fact that he then managed to win the lawsuit is the more surprising part. From the sound of it, Ryobi included all the proper safety equipment and they were disregarded. I didn't realize that this was an approach that you could turn profitable.
If the person removed the guards from the saw, used it improperly on top of that, and then hurt himself what should have happened is the judge threw the entire case out without even calling the defendant. If he wants to sue someone perhaps he should be going after the flooring company since they apparently take the guards off of the tools as a standard procedure, not the company that made the saw. It reminds me of the gun control advocates who started suing gun manufacturers for crimes committed with guns - it's not something that the manufacturer would ever have control over so there's no real basis to sue them for it.
It really amazes me how oblivious some people can be. The court system included in that statement too. I can't BELIEVE that this guy won.
From how it was described in the article about kneeling on the floor to cut this piece, I'm surprised he didn't actually fall into the table saw and hurt more than just his hand.
This person did not deserve to be awarded this money at all, they where so dumb. He was cutting something that was 1/2 of an inch thick with the blade set to a 3 inch thick. He obviously did not know what he was doing. The jury must not have known anything about safety and use of saws because if they would have known anything about they would have know that this was his fault. The amount of money that he got was a lot but I think it is still not worth all the pain and suffering that he had to go though .In my opinion a bad decision for a terrible accident.
I don't think that Osorio has the right to sue Ryobi at all. If someone does not know how to properly use a table saw, then they shouldn't be using it. If he had used the saw as it was meant to be used, and had taken the necessary precautions that should be taken when using this saw, then the chances of this accident happening would have been a lot less likely. I think that companies that have their workers use these tools should have some sort of way of checking to make sure that the workers actually know how to properly and safely use them. There should be some sort of certification, and if the worker doesn't have the certification, then the company should have to make sure that the worker gets it. I think that some sort of system like this would cut down on these sorts of accidents drastically.
I feel bad for the poor guy, but he has no reason to sue Ryobi. This injury was his fault! If he were going to sue anyone, it should have been the company he was working for that gave him a saw without the guard or rip fence, and taught him to work this way! It seems absurd to me that the court actually awarded him the money! His injury was a result of his negligence, not a defect in the saw. I mean, everything in the article about how he was positioned, the size of the board he was trying to cut, the lack of safety gear on the saw--it just all points towards his negligence! Suing the company and WINNING follows the same thinking as the woman who sued McDonalds or Dunkin a few years ago because she spilled her coffee and burned herself. (Thus the "Warning! Hot" On all cups now.) Will we end up with "Warning! Sharp!" on saws now because of this?!
Post a Comment