In a decision that has surprised some analysts and observers, a federal judge in Wilmington Delaware ruled today that a class action lawsuit against BedTek Industries, over alleged problems with their Snap-Blanket Sleep Equity System (SBSES) will be allowed to go forward.
According to the company’s patent filing, the system is meant to work as follows:
A series of titanium pegs are anchored in the “bed-edge side” of the Aggrieved Sleeper’s (ASS) body—typically driven into ankle, knee, hip, and shoulder—which terminate, flush with the skin, in the “male end” of a metal snap connector system.
The edge of a custom-fit, Layer Cake Sheet & Blanket Module (LCSBM), in which bedcovers are stapled together to form a Unitary Heat Retention System (UHRS) is equipped with the reciprocal “female end” snaps.
Upon retiring for the night, the ASS snaps onto the LCSBM, thereby thwarting any partner attempts at Nocturnal Heat Theft (NHT).
Plaintiffs claim the system has resulted in several hundred injuries serious enough to require hospital visits, more than three dozen divorces, and, at time of filing, at least seven deaths.
The company has argued that damages resulted not from flawed design or system failures but rather from the refusal of some consumers, BedTek Installers, and orthopedic surgeons to comply with installation and usage guidelines.
Five of the seven deaths have been ascribed to what attorneys have referred to as “the fifth peg problem,” in cases where surgeons attempted the installation of an additional snap, which involved driving an anchor into customers’ skulls. The other two documented fatalities were the result of Flaming Cape Syndrome, in which the UHRS, while still attached to the ASS, was set ablaze.
BedTek’s attorneys, having failed in an initial attempt to have the wrongful death cases dismissed, have filed a motion to have them separated from the larger legal action, arguing that they should have no liability for the actions of misguided medical personnel (“Who drove fucking pegs into peoples’ brains, for Christ sake!”) or angry spouses (“Wives have been setting husbands on fire at least since that 80s TV movie, ‘The Burning Bed.’ They can’t hang that on our client!”).
They made a similar filing—on which the court has yet to rule—regarding the great bulk of the divorce cases, arguing that they were also the result of product misuse.
“As the instructions make abundantly clear, there’s only supposed to be one ASS in bed. Couples who—perhaps in a misguided gesture toward equity—chose to anchor both partners, thereby subjecting their marriages to the stresses of Conjoined Twins Bathroom Syndrome, should take responsibility for the alleged ‘resultant Marital De-Romanticization and ensuing Loss of Consortium.’”
BedTek argues that the injuries alleged to have been caused by the system are the result of consumer negligence or customer misuse.
“The vast majority of these are, literally, ‘slip and fall’ cases. If you walk down the stairs attached to a blanket? My dog can tell you you’re likely to get hurt.”
The company’s attorneys have yet to give a substantive response regarding what have been dubbed “window shade” cases.
In half of these, consumers suffered oxygen-deprivation-related brain damage when, as a result of a night of “one-way rolling,” they ended up entirely cocooned in the UHRS and were unable to breathe.
In the other half, angry spouses, violently snatching back the covers, ended up spinning their partners at such a high rate of speed that they flew off the bed, usually resulting in the fracture of multiple limbs—in at least one case, allegedly resulting in the crushing death of the family cat.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the parties to the suit said, “I don’t think he really liked that cat anyway.”
BedTek will now have sixty days in which to file a response to the complaint.