🚀 go-pugleaf

[This should be cross-posted to Aus.legal. But it wouldn't get
an answer there, I'm sure. ;-)]


John Leister <johndk@senet.com.au> writes:
>Quick Question.
>If ever it is proved that phones produce a health
>effect no matter how small what would the legal
>implications be for both sellers, manufacturers
>and all?
>Could this hurt the industry badly?

Ah. Public liability. Another EAAASY question. ;-)

It all depends on the national mood when and if we get to the
point of showing there are effects. 

As per the tobacco industry, prosecutors's might tend to go for 
"when did [the industry] know there was research indicating there were 
ill effects, and what did you do about it?". 

It would then be interesting to observe (as some have)
that the com industry in the present era seems not to publish or promote
research on whether or not there are *any* effects (whether "good" or
"bad") from mobile phone use. I think one SBS doc even indicated that
at least one study in the past few years that showed alleged "beneficial"
effects (claiming that mobile phone users were "more alert" after
using their phones) was down-played by industry players because
(it was argued by the program) it was "safer" for the industry to
claim there was "no observed effect" than have consumers worry that
"SOME affect has been demonstrated (now let's look for the bad ones)".

But questions of damages (should that ever eventuate) are much less
significant (apropos "damage to the industry") than a loss of public 
confidence in the products, given we've all been aware of numerous examples
of hypthetically-similar things (i.e. some new product -- be
it tobacco, asbestos, radium watch-dials, channel blockers,
cocaine, etc) initially had "no know negative effects"; when millions
are actually *using* them, THEN ill effects show up and there are 
whispers "they" "knew all along"). Loss-of-confidence can destroy
a product; but (the net present value of ) future damages claims can be 
written off against current profits.

--
R. Kym Horsell
KHorsell@EE.LaTrobe.EDU.AU                  Kym@CS.Binghamton.EDU 
http://www.ee.latrobe.edu.au/~khorsell      http://cs.binghamton.edu/~kym