eye opener must read..

Years ago we sold a baler to a carpenter, farmer, contractor.  HE hired a customer to run it.  He checked on the operator and could not find him - shut off the tractor and yelled his name - noticed red hyd fluid coming from baler - it was not hydraulic fluid. The operator was inside the empty baler decapitated. The widow was settling the estate and a lawyer told her she could get millions in a law suit.  They sued Vemeer for patenting the round baler, Hesston for building it , me for selling it , customer for buying it and hiring her husband and the land owner for hiring him to bale the hay. Every one wanted to settle out of court except my customer  - he hired and private investigator and found the deceased  had taken 6 BC powder, was on pain meds, was on disability and found foot prints on top of the baler where he somehow jumped into the bale chamber.  He wanted the body exhumed and tested and if it was found he as over medicated she would have to give up the double indemnity part of the life insurance - she dropped the suit on the day liability statute was up - cost the defense , us , big bucks.... the big equipment companies build this into the price of equipment - several % n $ set aside for lawsuits.  We all pay for the ambulance chasing lawyers. 

there should be NO liability here - how many thousands of other operators used non abusive techniques plus common sense read the op man and had no issues. When the legal system grants judgement like this it negates the "ignorance of the law is no excuse" paradigm WE have to live under when we do something wrong against the law because we did not know a particular law.  What is next - customers trading a finger in a negligent willing accident for a million bucks? It is a slippery slope to un-affordable equipment or the elimination of equipment as in the corn picker....    

Wife of a farmer I worked for in college had a shirt that pretty well summed it up.  "Trial lawyers don't make the products you buy, they make the products you buy more expensive".  I can see why the the Deere factory didn't ballast the tractor.  One customer wants cast, next customer wants calcium chloride, another wants a non-corrosive tire ballast, and another is going to use their own 3 point weight bracket.

Common sense is not common, but trial lawyers are...

Well JD did state in the owners manual that the tractor was unsafe to operate without the proper rear ballast being added. They sold the tractor without the equipment to make it safe to operate per their own words.About all these new plastic/electronic wonders I have been around the last few years with loaders are unsafe in my opinion because of the lack of rear weight being built into them.People rely on the 4WD to make them handle loads but that doesn't stop rollovers.

It should have been the dealers problem and not John Deere. Tom

Deere has deeper pockets than P&K Implement.

all arguments aside, this, and the 'lap log' post else ware on this forum are rather sobering.
We can all argue who's "fault" it was, but the bottom line is we are all the last line of defense for our own safety!
It behooves us to assure ourselves we know and understand what the hell we are doing! IF WE DONT, THE RESULTS CAN BE PRETTY MUCH GUARANTEED!

I don't know, but I will bet that somewhere in the operators manuals for both the tractors in this and the 'lap log' post both situations were addressed! I suspect that in the JD case, somewhere in the ops manual it emphatically states that the machine had to be ballasted. Did the operator read the ops manual? Did he then check to assure it was ballasted?

'lap log' case, I am willing to bet the ops manual for that machine says something about lifting loads too high. anybody wanna bet the operator never read the manual?

The real problem is we live in a litigation society to the point that manufacturers need to put warnings and labels and six pages of cautions in every ops manual to the point that we have become numb to them.....we pay little or no attention to any of them! there is a decal on the deck of every lawn mower sold 'do not place finger under deck with mower running' because some jaskass(s) did so came up with stubs and then sued the manufacturer!

the more guards and shields and warnings that are added to products, the stupider and lazier we all get.....and the less we want to take responsibility for our own actions!!!! and the more we pay for products to pay for the law suits and litigators!!

Edited by LouSWPA - 24 Jan 2020 at 9:39am

Step 1, the policy is to have the dealers do it so that the customer gets the specific ballast they want, as stated above.

I'm just messing with ya' hough........I get it too.

Edited by jaybmiller - 24 Jan 2020 at 10:20am

I completely understand your words Lonn, I am around guys from lets say the city, cant wait to get to their - property- on weekends to abuse the tractors, roll 4 whlers ,, shoot guns etc,,without much common sense of how things can turn around so fast,and of coarse drink- I always think , oh wow , whose gonna get killed this weekend

Edited by DougG - 24 Jan 2020 at 12:16pm

JD,Kubota and other tractor companies are targeting the homeowner,just getting started type people in many of their ads.If they stated they were only interested in selling to experienced tractor operators that'd be a different story.Of course the truth is they want to sell to anyone that will sign up for their $0 down,easy monthly payments.In my opinion if JD ships the tractor out with a mounted loader then they should have the tractor equipped to safely operate it especially since they state in the manual what it takes to do so.If on the other hand the dealer mounts the loader at their place then the responsibility goes to the dealer.

Think about the money jd saved by not shipping the weights on the unit.