Personal Injury Law

The Funniest Oklahoma Court Decision of 2007 ? Satellite Dish Blues

By Rod Heggy

What requires the skills of an appliance technician and Spiderman? A brand new satellite dish!!

In 2007, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reiterated a time honored rule of law that before there is liability in a negligence claim there must be a duty. The breach of the duty must also cause the damage (injury). But, fundamentally, if there is no duty by one person to another, then there can be no liability.

Thus, in Lowery v Echostar Satellite Corp., 2007 OK 38, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the satellite dish company had no liability because it had no duty to prevent its customer from falling off her own roof when she tried to repair the satellite dish. The customer suffered several broken bones in the cause of satellite dish television. It did not matter that the customer had customer service on her wireless so that they could talk her through the repair. The satellite dish company could not see the roof, the customer, or whether the two would not be compatible.

More interesting is the fact that what caused the customer to try to scale her roof was the need to repair the satellite dish. The customer called customer service and was sent a package of three small screws. She again called customer service to inquire how the three screws were sufficient to her need and why someone was not out to repair the dish. Customer service told her no one would be coming out.

The satellite dish warranty contract apparently did not specifically require that a human be dispatched to do the warranty work, but rather anticipated that the customer would be the one to scale the roof and do the repair. Thus, the Supreme Court could do nothing for the consumer.

Nobody with any sense of fairness would sell a warranty that required the skills of a technician and Spiderman to maintain a consumer device ? except the satellite dish folks, it seems. Maybe they have forgotten that the satellite dishes are small and installed on high places, rather than the old ones that were as big as small cars and had to sit on the ground.

Full post as published by Terra Extraneus on February 27, 2008 (boomark / email).