Lawsuits filed after games caused seizures
Posted: 04/06/2013 Filed under: Legal Action, Seizure Warnings, Video Game Companies | Tags: American Academy of Pediatrics, computer games, Nintendo, photosensitive epilepsy, photosensitivity, product liability, seizure warning, Sony, Ubisoft, video games 3 Comments
No consumer has won a product liability/personal injury case against a game manufacturer whose video game triggered seizures. Cases were either dismissed, settled, or won by the game company.
Despite their limited usefulness to consumers, seizure warning notices do seem to provide legal protection to game publishers. And juries have a hard time awarding damages to plaintiffs with a pre-existing condition, even if plaintiffs didn’t know of their photosensitive epilepsy prior to the seizure(s) triggered by a video game.
In one case Nintendo actually conceded that its game had in fact triggered seizures, but that didn’t get in the way of the company winning the case. A judge later overturned the jury’s verdict because Nintendo had withheld critical information in contempt of court.
The cases date back to 1991, but the apparent total number of cases–ten–is pretty small. One has to wonder what percentage of the seizures triggered by exposure to video games are ever identified as visually induced seizures.
One of the few consumers to reach a settlement is John Ledford of Alabama, whose settlement agreement bars John from discussing his own case. John has found another way to raise awareness of video game seizures. He has researched other cases and reached out to epilepsy organizations around the globe to raise their awareness of the continuing seizure hazard from video game images. John’s Facebook page contains most of the history I’ve assembled here:
| Year Filed | State | Plaintiff(s) | Game(s)/Platform/Defendant | Outcome |
| 1991 | MI | 15-year old Laura Moceri had grand mal seizure while playing. | Kid Icarus (Nintendo) | Lost |
| 1993 | IL | Chicago boy suffered occasional seizures during many hours of game play. | Nintendo | Dismissed |
| 1995 | AL | John Ledford had his first ever grand mal seizure while playing game at an arcade. The seizure damaged his optic nerve and caused blindness in one eye. | King of the Monsters II (SNK Corp.) | Settled |
| 1998 | LA | 13 year-old Joey Roccaforte had clusters of violent seizures | Mega Man X (Super Nintendo) | Jury ruled for Nintendo; judge later vacated the decision because Nintendo withheld critical information before and during trial. |
| 2001 | LA | Esther Walker, mother of 30-year old Benjamin Walker, who died from hitting his head on a table and sustaining internal injuries during a game-induced seizure. | Nintendo 64 | Lost |
| 2001 | LA | 11 year-old Michael Martin, son of Eric Martin, mayor of St. Martinsville, LA. Seizures that began happening during games began occurring also during sleep. | Super Mario Kart (Nintendo 64) | Settled personal injury claim; lost case advocating better warnings. |
| 2001 | LA | 6 year –old Kynan Hebert, son of Lynette Benoit | Nintendo | Dismissed |
| 2002 | FL | 16 year-old Dominic Zummo | Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles (LucasArts Entertainment, SONY) | Unknown |
| 2007 | NY | While watching his brother play a game, 4 year-old boy had a seizure causing permanent injury. | Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly (Vivendi, SONY Playstation 2) | Last available information: attorney for plaintiff was seeking other plaintiffs for class action suit |
| 2011 | CA | Navy F-18 pilot John Ryan McLaughlin injured in a grand mal seizure that causes permanent loss of flight status | Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls IV (Bethesda Software), Sony Playstation 3. | Still pending; no other information available. |
What constitutes product liability?
In 1997 the criteria for product manufacturer’s liability for a product that has caused harm were revised by the American Law Institute, an independent body of legal experts that drafts and publishes restatements of common law in order to clarify and simplify it. Its work is used as a resource by state lawmakers, judges, and lawyers. Every state has its own laws concerning burden of proof, the awarding of damages, and the like.
The 1997 restatement of product liability law states, “a product is defective when, at the time of sale or distribution, it contains a manufacturing defect, is defective in design or is defective because of inadequate instructions or warnings.” These conditions are then defined separately:
- A product “contains a manufacturing defect when the product departs from its intended design even though all possible care was exercised in the preparation and marketing of the product.”
- A product “contains a design defect when the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design by the seller or other distributor, or a predecessor in the commercial chain of distribution, and the omission of the reasonable alternative design renders the product not reasonably safe.”
- A product “is defective because of inadequate instructions or warnings when the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the product could have been reduced or avoided by the provision of reasonable instructions or warnings by the seller or other distributor, or a predecessor in the commercial chain of distribution and the omission of the instructions or warnings renders the product not reasonably safe.”
Some game companies are apparently working to make games that do not provoke seizures, but only Ubisoft has made a public commitment. As far as I can tell, most are merely reworking their warnings.
Seizures from Video Games 
