I can't stand frivolous lawsuits.Dismissal of iPod hearing loss lawsuit upheld on appeal
Ars Technica - Chris Foresman - 26 minutes ago
An appellate court upheld a federal district court's decision that iPods' maximum output doesn't represent a danger of hearing loss that isn't "obvious" or "avoidable.
Most cars can go faster than the speed limit but you don't see lawsuits suing car companies because their cars go too fast.
Dexter should stop killing murderers and go after people that are sue happy.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/ ... appeal.ars
A class action lawsuit filed in 2006 alleging that Apple's iPods can damage a user's hearing was dismissed in Apple's favor last year. The decision was appealed, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal this week.
It has been well-documented that iPods are capable of outputting as much as 115dB of sound with stock earbuds, which is certainly capable of damaging your hearing even if listening for short periods of time. However, the maximum output can vary depending the type of headphones used, and iPods have a setting that can automatically limit the maximum output power. The plaintiffs claimed that the mere potential to damage hearing was enough to bring the lawsuit against Apple, even though none of them had actually suffered any hearing loss themselves.
The appellate court agreed with the lower court's ruling that such potential alone did not represent a reasonable cause of action, since an iPod can be used in a manner which wouldn't cause hearing loss. Further, the court also ruled that since the named plaintiffs did not suffer any injury and could reasonably avoid possible injury, they had no standing to bring a class action against Apple.
There are plenty of good reasons for an iPod to have a high output level, the least of which being using it with a variety of audio equipment beyond the included standard Apple earbuds. Suing Apple won't necessarily protect anyone from hearing loss, but limiting the volume or the length of time you use your iPod (or both!) will.
