Kotaku 
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Denver, 3:47 AM
Fri Nov 27
28 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/20/08
I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.
12/20/08
Yeah, well it is the insurance company suing, if you have read the whole article.
Not some "cool kid".
Just normal business as usual, that happens every single day with insurance companies. The only difference is, you know about this lawsuit because it is about Nintendo, thus it gets posted here.
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
First, the plaintiff is going to have to prove that it were not the outlet (or the wiring) of the house that caused it. I figure this, because if I were cross examining, this would be the first thing I would ask. (i.e; When were the chattel last inspected, do you have a copy of the inspection, etc.)
Next, there would have to be proof that the product itself caused said damage. (Do you have a copy of the "fire report"? Did the fire inspector sign off on it? Did the insurance underwriter sign off on a similar report?)
Lastly, I would ask if it were not negligently (or malfeasantly) caused by the plaintiff (and party). I would be asking the plaintiff making the charge if they knew proper plugging procedures, if they used too much force on the cord, if they plugged too many cords, etc. I would then ask the fire inspectors and underwriters if there were any possibility that negligence were a contributing factor in the event.
In short, the plaintiff hasn't got a prayer. Even if the plaintiff can prove that the cord were remotely faulty, there is a great chance that the defense team will point to contributory negligence, or at the very least vicarious liability. The plaintiff is going to have a hard time proving that the cord used were primarilly to blame, and not the wiring, outlet, etc.
12/20/08
"You guys got a lot of money, just throw some at us and we'll be quiet."
12/20/08
Then again, I also somehow expect "The Big N" to play this one out if the settlement requested is ridiculous. To a degree, they'd also have to think about how many potentially frivolous claims may be said if they don't make a precedent on this claim.
Afterall, in a bad economy, people are liable to turn desperate for ways to find a "rainmaker".
12/20/08
12/20/08
Nice one.
12/20/08
12/20/08
Owen's probly just making light of the issue but Kentuckians are especially sensative to the fact that everyone assumes that since we have a lot of farms that we are uneducated etc.
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
This is about the power adapter, not the DS unit itself.
12/20/08
Nintendo Lawyer, "There are literally millions of DSs out there and none of them has ever caused a fire."
12/20/08
One has to start somewhere if before this there was none.
/wink
12/20/08
12/20/08
No!
"All hail the plastic I shall worship"
/sarcasm
12/20/08
Clearly you've never dealt with an insurance company before. They like to receive the money and when it comes time for them to shell it out they look for every reason they can find to not pay up. In this case they had to pay up and thus they hired some dick in a suit to search archives for a justified suit against nintendo and found it with the recall, they WILL WIN this suit because of that.
12/20/08
Insurance is a government-sanctioned - and in some cases, government-mandated - ripoff.
12/20/08
12/20/08
If it's a transformer (and it clearly is, since it outputs at 5.2v DC), then it will continue to draw current even if nothing is plugged into it. You may not notice it with a tiny little wall wart like the DS uses, but larger ones will stay warm as long as they're plugged into a live outlet, even if they're not in use.
12/21/08
12/23/08
The DS stops drawing a full current, but even once the orange light turns off it will draw a tiny current so it can keep the clock and calendar running without draining the battery over time. Either that or it will wait until those functions drain enough power off the top that it's time to pull a bit more juice (like a laptop will sometimes do when it's plugged in and powered down). However, a transformer will constantly provide reflavored power (AC/DC, voltage change, etc.) even when there's nothing there to draw on it. That process may not burn as much juice as it will when something _is_ drawing power, but it's still going to turn some of that power into heat.
12/20/08
Who really cares whether Nintendo wins or loses this lawsuit? I'm sure Nintendo doesn't. $236,000? Seriously? Nintendo can find that in the cushions of their couches made out of the souls of PS3 owners.
12/20/08
12/21/08
If the cord was frayed at a point that wasn't immediately adjacent to the adapter housing itself, there should be a distinctly different burn pattern than if the fire had originated right at the outlet. It would probably be harder to tell if the outlet or the adapter plug was the source than if it was a problem in the cord itself (I once visited some friends in NYC where the outlet that I plugged my laptop into clearly had a loose connection, as jiggling the plug would cause the power to cut in and out). Also, unless the fire got hot enough to actually melt the electrical wire in the DS adapter, any spot that was frayed enough to cause a fire should show sufficient signs of distress and metal fatigue that they'd probably be able to pick it out as the specific source, in relation to the burn pattern.
Now, the one piece of evidence that surely did get destroyed was the manufacturer's stamp on the adapter housing, since that was formed into plastic that would have melted.
BTW, for those who are interested in checking their import adapters, if you look at the plug side of the housing, where it has "Nintendo" stamped at the top, the _bad_ adapters have "JRC" stamped in the lower right corner. Safe adapters have "Zebra" or a stylized "M" formed by three diagonal bars in that corner.
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/20/08
Moreover, IANAL, but I don't think a product recall can be used as an argument in this kind of case. Wouldn't companies be discouraged from recalling faulty products if it automatically exposed them to liability?
"Stupid Kentucky family", thinks insurance-man, "Couldn't you buy a 360? Make my job a whole easier, it would."
12/20/08
12/20/08
Japanese outlets use nearly the same two-bladed design that US outlets use (they generally use non-polarized outlets, though), but they run 100v at either 50Hz or 60Hz. US outlets run 120v at 60Hz. It's close enough that you can run US devices off Japanese outlets without requiring a transformer to step up the voltage, and it does look like they just make one model of acapter for both US and Japanese release. I've got an NTR-002 adapter from my imported Japanese graphite-black DS Phat, and a USG-002 adapter from my US onyx-black DS Lite, and both of them have pretty much the same type of markings. Both are identified as (JPN/USA) adapters after the product number, both list the Japanese power ratings _and_ the US power ratings, and both are covered in both kanji and roman letters (including both the UL symbol, and a few symbols that would appear to be the Japanese equivalent). Fortunately, both of mine are Zebra branded, so I don't have to worry about sending my import's adapter back to Japan for replacement. Though, frankly, I'd probably just throw it out and use one of the SP/Lite combo adapters that's on the market now.
12/21/08
12/23/08
Yeah. Roman letters. You know, the stuff we write English with?
12/20/08
12/20/08
12/21/08