Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Appeals court urged to overturn RF headset cases

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 14:38:42 -0500

Appeals court urged to overturn RF headset cases
By BY JEFFREY SILVA
November 14 13:01:00, 2003

WASHINGTON—Plaintiffs’ lawyers again urged a federal appeals court to overturn a
lower court ruling dismissing five class-action suits that sought to force
mobile-phone carriers to supply consumers with headsets to reduce the chance of
injury from radiation emitted by handsets.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake of Baltimore last year denied a motion to
remand four of the cases to state court and the fifth to a federal court in
Louisiana.
In March, Blake threw out all five suits.

“The telecommunications carriers and manufacturers … represent that their
commercial activities are inherently federal and wholly beyond scrutiny of the
state courts. In deregulating that industry, however, Congress never intended to
immunize such activities from the operation of state tort and consumer
protection laws,” plaintiffs told the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Richmond, Va., on Nov 5. The date for oral argument has not been set.

The 4th Circuit last month affirmed Blake’s dismissal of an $800 million cancer
suit against Motorola Inc. and others.  Lawyers for Christopher Newman, the
Maryland neurologist who filed the suit in 2000, have not said whether they plan
further legal action. The outcome of the headset appeal could determine whether
Blake agrees to remand to state court nine brain cancer cases that turn on
jurisdiction.
On a related front, Chicago parents have filed a class action suit against local
education officials for installing wireless local area networks in schools. The
suit, filed in Cook County circuit court said the school district ignored
potential health risks posed by radio-frequency radiation and “breached their
duties of care to the children of District 27.”

U.S. health agencies say research indicates low-level radiation does not pose a
heath risk, but caution they cannot guarantee that human exposure to such
transmissions are safe. Some studies have found genetic damage from low-level RF
emissions. The government said it supports more research.

http://rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=15937

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