Barshfield

“Scratch and sniff - and open the windows."

“Ahh, woodworking – not the same old grind.”

“One belt in the morning and I’m good for the whole day.”

Sorry to not have added my two cents earlier. I'm a hobbyist woodworker and an attorney (as was at least one other contributor). As a lawyer, I have done some personal injury cases myself, both as plaintiff's counsel and as defense counsel. I like to think I can see all sides of this as far as the "who is to blame" issue. From my view, accidents happen but, with the ever-present 20/20 hindsight, many things could have been done that would have changed the outcome.
The plaintiff could have been smarter (knowing what he was doing), more attentive (both to the training given and to his working environment), more patient (waiting to make the cut until the available safety attachments were indeed installed), more strong-willed (to bring up the lack of safety equipment to his supervisor), and more inquisitive (about the proper safety measures to be taken, assuming he knew enough to even ask). To receive the $1.5 million award, he had to first relinquish a portion of his quality of life. (By the way, from what I've read so far, I can't tell if his injured hand was his dominant hand but, if it was, that is even worse).
The tool manufacturer could have installed the Saw Stop mechanism, a point the jury was somehow persuaded was important. The tool manufacturer could have installed an auto-feed mechanism that was remotely controlled, so the worker did not have to touch the saw at all, except during setup. The tool manufacturer could have elected to not provide a useful tool to the market at all and, instead, required anyone who wanted to re-dimension wood to rely on natural decay rather than interactive mechanical methods. How far is reasonable for a tool manufacturer to go to ensure the safety of the users of its products? It seems that, just like automobiles (as in air-bags, as another contributor mentioned), the safety bar seems to be moved higher and higher as improved technology becomes more available. In this case, that available technology has been proven, but not incorporated into the saw in use. The tool manufacturer was indeed responsible for having not installed this available technology. But was it unreasonable for the tool manufacturer to have excluded it to the point that the manufacturer was liable for the worker's injuries? As for me, I say no. But the decision was not mine and, in fact, it was not that of the attorneys either - it was the decision of twelve disinterested people.
Now the real reason I write - the supervisors here. It sounds like whoever trained this guy did a horrible job, failing to instill in the worker any sense of the safety issues surrounding proper use of a table saw. Even if the direct training was excellent, it appears to me that subsequent supervision of the worker's performance was woefully substandard. You shouldn't train a person and then think everything you told them actually stuck in their head. The worker's performance needs to be observed, the training reiterated where needed, and the cycle repeated. An area where one can get into big trouble is the training that a supervisor should not tolerate - learning by bad example. If this worker was taught all the right things, but then saw another more seasoned worker taking shortcuts and getting away with it, the worker learn will learn a new "standard" of performance and complacency and figure he can do his job "just like the big boys." In short, apart from the worker's lack of common sense (or at least what sense a carpenter or woodworker should have), I blame his supervisors (for lack of a better name for them). They either didn't train him right and then monitor and correct his performance (i.e., what the law calls "negligent supervision") or didn't hire the right person(s) to teach him or look after him (i.e., what the law calls "negligent hiring"). Think about it - if any of you was this worker's supervisor and had seen this worker trying to rip narrow oak strips without even a fence, would you have stopped him and said something? If this was such an obvious error (and it was), sure you would've. So, in this case where the guards and the fence were removed, how did the supervisors avoid being injured themselves? They had someone else expose themselves to the risk.
Overall, I say bad supervison is a major culprit here, combined with the worker's lack of reasonable care for his own safety (assuming he was sufficiently trained in the first place so as to be able to better say "he knew better"). The tool manufacturer? It was a big target because it represented a big pocket. The juries want some source of money, any source, to pay an injured person what they think the loss is worth. If it doesn't come from the employer, then they look to whoever else just might share some responsibility, including product manufacturers. In this case, it was Ryobi.