Taser news
I’ve not covered Taser deaths for a while. That is because they seem to have dropped off a bit. That said:
Yesterday, stun gun maker Taser International (TASRE) announced that a wrongful death lawsuit against the company had been dismissed with prejudice, which sent the stock up about 11% yesterday. And there was today’s release that the company would be able to drop the E and resume trading on NASDAQ.
But in the Q the company filed yesterday, there were some interesting legal disclosures that didn’t make it into one of the three press releases that the company has put out in the past 24 hours. For example, while the company noted in yesterday’s release that this was the eighth wrongful death lawsuit to be dismissed, it failed to note that the number of product liability lawsuits which claim either wrongful death or personal injury, has more than doubled since the Q the company filed in late May.
I think Tasers function like they’re supposed to and don’t really fault the company for Taser related deaths. That seems to be more of a police issue than a company issue. Still, Taser seems to be catching most of the heat for it.
December 23rd, 2005 at 6:34 pm
Sorry for what may be a stupid question, but what exactly do they mean by “dismissed with prejudice”?
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:08 pm
A dismissal with prejudice is a loss on the merits, as opposed to a dismissal without prejudice, which allows the plaintiff to retry the case later if he can produce whatever arguments/evidence/parties/etc. was found lacking on the first go-around.
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:26 pm
“That seems to be more of a police issue than a company issue.” It depends on how they’ve been marketing Tasers. If they’ve been upfront about the risks, then it’s certainly a police issue. If they’ve been selling them as “nonlethal” rather than as “less lethal”, the company should have a problem.
December 24th, 2005 at 7:36 am
Xrlq, thanks for the explanation.
December 26th, 2005 at 1:20 am
I believe they have said ‘less lethal’, in training at least.