Why don’t you start a thread based on that. It should be fun.
the “simple modification” had nothing to do with the case presented. The flashback insert serves a different purpose. It is designed for cans left open AND exposed to an ignition source AND under specific conditions where aging gasoline creates a volatile vapor. The flame front travels down the arrester where the heat is rapidly dissipated to the point it is no longer hot enough to ignite.
According to this paper (PDF alert) the insert used in Blitz cans functions as an arrester even though the company refers to it as a filter. It’s a good read if you want to understand the background.
What was described in the lawsuit was a person pouring gasoline on a fire which is a different scenario entirely. An arrester is designed to stop a single event where vapor is ignited and IMO the pouring of gasoline from the container creates a continuous source of fuel and heat that would ignite the container’s contents regardless of the presence of an arrester.
I dispute your dispute. Pouring gasoline on a fire is knowingly stupid. It’s a deliberate risk that cannot be assuaged by any safety device.
And phone manufacturers know that a certain percentage of the population will use them while driving. This is entirely the fault of the people driving unsafely, not the manufacturers who failed to curtail their self-destructive behaviour.
When the technology becomes cheap enough and prevalent enough to restrict people from operating the devices while driving, phone companies will probably see an increase in tort claims. As it becomes clear that they made conscious decisions to not incorporate a safety feature in the name of higher profits you’ll see them losing more and more cases.
The thing here is Blitz isn’t the only company that makes gas cans. The other companies that make gas cans are incorporating better safety features. They are not filing for bankruptcy to avoid liability. Why is that?
If you read the paper I cited you’ll understand the nature of the lawsuit. Blitz was apparently a large supplier of containers. They incorporated a device that acted as an arrester. It wasn’t designed to stop all misuse of the product nor is there anyway to accomplish this. Other manufactures will succumb to the same type of lawsuits as they present themselves.
An analogy of the lawsuit would be a car with airbags driven into a wall at 100 mph. It’s not possible for a manufacturer to build a product to withstand willful misuse of it.
It would doubtlessly also slow the flow of gasoline out of the can. Most people would either remove the flow constrictor or poke a larger hole through it.
I use small gas containers every day in my business. The last gas can I bought had a spring-loaded thing at the end of the spout which had to be held back in order for gas to flow. It was difficult to use, and while using it I spilled more gas in a day than I did in a week using the old simple design. After 2 weeks I cut off the overly complicated end of the spout and put a cork from a wine bottle in it. Problem solved.
That may spell the beginning of the end of the American cork manufacturing industry:)
Oddly, I know of 2 people who did the exact same thing. Maybe there’s a lawsuit in the making of a company that should have known people would disable the safety device and therefore they should have made a second safety device to back up the first one. repeat as needed until a gas can resembles a nuclear power plant and costs as much.
It was from a bottle of California wine. Mr. Duality buys American if possible. Nearly all cork comes from SW Europe and NW Africa though.
Wile E. Coyote: I rest my case, your honor.
I’m curious if the gas had any sort of warning label on it. Doesn’t it make more sense for lawyers to go after a company like Exxon that makes billions of dollars every year?
Perhaps. Because what we really need is non-flammable gas.
The facts can be found here.
Are you being serious?
Quite.
Would you mind pointing out where it mentions anything about the Blitz case? That is the one in question here. The facts about the MacDonalds case are well known.
That’s what I assumed the question I was answering was about. If you will notice, the first post I quoted was mentioning the MD case. The second one seemed to be asking for info about same. So I provided a link I knew about and could easily find. I know nothing about the Blitz case, or where to find the info, so I wasn’t addressing that case. If I assumed wrong, then “oh well, sorry”.
Ok, np. The point was a comparison between McDs and Blitz. The McD case is well documented. Simple searches only show biased sources for Blitz. There are similarities in the cases, but enough differences (maybe, since the details are still scarce) that the two cases may not show the same problems with tort law. But they both highlight tort law problems.
What problems are those?