Bruce, The question in my mind became in this instance:
Did spilling a single drink on the camera make the owner at fault for the subsequent failure of the object? My wife has a G9 and I have a G10, the predecessors to the G11. Knowing their build quality and that I use the G10 in wet and windy conditions when skiing, I would not think that spilling something on any modern camera should immediately make it inoperative. Back to the moral issues since that seems to be what we're talking about. I'll say what I think and am willing to take the brunt of it. Big picture, not just this incident - Does being honest *always* require telling everything you know? If the answer is yes, then I'm afraid one will find themselves at a severe disadvantage as there are certain types of people who will capitalize on that to their own advantage and to other's disadvantage. There is honesty but there's also discretion, both are admirable attributes and serve one well. If it were me with the G11 drink spill, I would have likely done the same as occurred. If asked, I would have told the truth that I spilled something on it. If not asked, I would figure they did not deem the reason important and were simply happy to give me a replacement. Had I been asked, I'd have made the claim that I certainly wouldn't expect a spill to cause the camera to immediately become non-functional. Let's see, will it work at SeaWorld when splashed? What about at Yosemite in the spray of Bridal Veil Falls, a rainy day? Do you know how many extended warranties are purchased to cover this sort of thing that are never used? Now there is a scam. The majority of them, never utilized, goes straight to the bottom line. A hugh profit center preying on people's insecurities. A little story. About eight years ago, through a totally stupid act of my own doing, I accidentally set off the fire suppression system in my hotel room (I could make this story very funny if I gave you all the details). Though buck naked at the time... No... I pulled on some pants, threw my laptop bag out into the hallway, and bounded down two flights of stairs to the office, just as those nauseating alarms and flashing lights started going off all over the hotel. I told them what I'd done that set the sprinklers off. Guess what? They did not know how to turn the fire supression system off. They did not have a procedure manual at the hotel. They called another hotel in the same chain to see if they knew how. Yes, but different system. Fire department calls to see if there's a fire. No there's a flood, so you needn't come. I go back to my room and the maintenance guy is standing in two inches of water with a shop vac trying to vacum up the water while it's still coming out of the ceiling. I immediately told him to get out of there before he gets himself electrocuted. Still trying to figure out the suppression system, I am running and relaying information from the office to the maintenance guy back at the control panel which is in the basement/pool level of the hotel. Still bare chest, pair of pants, bare feet. As I'm running past the pool I see water dripping out of the ceiling into the pool! From 3 floors above! Oh crap and a bunch of other things! The local Fire Department finally shows up sirens blaring. They go down and just as they're about to stem the flow of water, the system exhausts itself. Apparently, it's a finite pressurized supply. So all the water that would have been used for the entire hotel, went out into my room, over a period of about 30 minutes. Oh crap and a bunch of other things! The hotel graciously assigned me another room. I went and bought dry clothes and went into work. I lurked back in through the side door that evening around 8:00. Carpets were pulled up all over the place with big blowers running. Wow I think, several weeks later, they haven't sued me. Not quite that lucky. Months later, after having stayed at the hotel for the next four months, out of a misplaced sense of guilt, I receive a letter. It's from the hotel chain's, insurance company's, risk management company. They're demanding payment of $27,000 in damages, including my room, the 3 floors below, and lost income because other hotel residents left (the alarm system kept malfunctioning and going off intermittently for the next 8 - 10 hours). I finally got some advice and called my home owners insurance to see if I was in some way covered through it. Yes. So they took up the litigation in my defense. My argument was, that while I was indeed responsible for having set the system off, I was not responsible for the hotel not knowing how to control it and turn it off. I would have thought they should be able to turn it off in under 5 minutes. So I figured I was responsible for no more than 1/6 of the damages. Under Washington State law, a tenant is only responsible for their room. The arbitrator also agreed with the argument that the hotel itself was to blame for their incompetence and that the vast majority of the damage was directly related to that. I ended up paying $350. Now here's what really gets me. The hotel chain had insurance. We all know that insurance is just another form of gambling. They take your money, betting that in the majority of instances, they'll never have to pay out. In this case they did. But then, instead of figuring this was one the times they lost the bet, the insurance company used a risk management firm to try and recover the money. What the heck? They wanted it both ways. How does this story relate to the G11 incident? I guess it showed me that everything is not always so black and white as some would like to believe. Owner was responsible for spilling a drink. Was he totally responsible for the camera no longer working? From my viewpoint no. I'd have thunk the camera was little more impervious than that. Tom C. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
