Table Saw Lawsuit Consolidation Sought in Federal Court

Plaintiffs who have filed table saw lawsuits in different states throughout the country alleging that several brands contain defective designs and inadequate safety features that resulted in an injury, have filed a petition to consolidate the cases in one court for pretrial litigation as part of a Multidistrict Litigation (MDL).

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has scheduled a hearing on the motion for July 30, 2009, to review whether the cases involve sufficient common questions of fact and if the cases qualify for coordinated handling under the Federal rules.

All of the table saw product liability lawsuits charge that manufacturers and distributors acted negligently in using outdated and ineffective safety technology involving the blade guard, resulting in various injuries ranging from lacerations to severe disfigurement.

The plaintiffs indicate that all of the cases involve table saws that were outfitted with substantially similar and defective guarding systems. The complaints allege that the manufacturers failed to include a flash-detection technology, which has been known in the table saw industry since 2000 as an alternative safety design that substantially mitigates or prevents serious injury from contact with a spinning blade. The table saws also allegedly lacked a “riving knife”, which is an inexpensive attachment that can previent a piece of cut wood from kicking back at the operator.

The table saw litigation currently involves 43 different product liability lawsuits pending in 10 different districts among 8 states. The majority of the cases, 23, are pending in the District of Massachusetts, which was suggested as the court where all of the cases should be centralized.

If the cases are consolidated in an MDL, the litigation will be assigned to one judge for pretrial proceedings to avoid duplicative discovery and inconsistent rulings from different courts throughout the United States. The procedure is also designed to conserve the resources of the witnesses, parties and the court.

Although the cases will be combined for discovery and pretrial litigation, if the lawsuits do not resolve, they will be remanded back to the district where they were originally filed for trial.

Defendants named in the table saw lawsuits include Black & Decker, Ryobi Technologies, Inc., Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., Sears & Roebuck, Co. and One World Technologies, among others.