The Examiner reports that Sony is facing a lawsuit from a blind gamer named Alexander Stern in California. Mr. Stern contends that even after repeated requests he made to Sony via email to revise their games to make them more accessible, the company did not revise their games. For blind gamers, this is a big deal.

The gamer sued under Title III of the ADA and under California civil rights law.

ADA Title III requires that all public accommodations and facilities from commercial and non-profit entities be accessible to disabled Americans.

While the law historically applies to physical accommodations, Stern alleges them broad enough to include the virtual world as well. While his complaint makes referrence to the brick and mortar Sony stores that sell Sony's games, his primary argument is that the gaves themselves are goods, services, privileges, advantages or accomodations of the stores, thus bringing them under Title III of the ADA.

Dunkin' Donuts cannot be pleased about a recent complaint with shades of the famous McDonald's lawsuit. Surely everyone remembers the 1994 case against McDonald's, Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants. Woman spills coffee. Coffee is hot. Woman suffers 3rd degree burns and is awarded $2.86 million in court.

A class action lawsuit was filed by CA residents Seong Bae Choi and Chris Chan Park on Nov. 5, 2009 against the popular car maker Toyota.

The plaintiffs claim that sudden acceleration is a problem that is present in many makes and models. This particular problem has caused countless unintended accidents and crashes. They also contend that in spite of Toyota's knowledge of the problem, that Toyota has failed to address the safety issue.

According to Bloomberg, there have been over 2,000 complaints about sudden acceleration. The lawsuit also contends that the sudden acceleration has been the cause of 16 deaths and over 200 injuries.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest released a new report today on the "Top Ten Riskiest Foods Regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration". The report details ten common foods that account for 40 percent of all food-based illness outbreaks. So, what makes a food risky in the eyes of the CSPI?

More than 1,500 separate outbreaks were associated with the top ten riskiest foods, causing nearly 50,000 reported illnesses. Reported illnesses range from stomach aches to major issues such as kidney failure and death, and included fun stuff like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeriosis and Norovirus. The Top Ten Riskiest Foods:

The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to take months to complete its investigation of last month's Washington Metro train crash, but it signaled strongly this week that it has already identified the major culprit in the collision.

According to a New York Times story, the NTSB issued an "urgent recommendation" on Monday to the Federal Transit Administration, urging them to tell transit operators nationwide to inspect for a train-detection issue in computerized systems.

It appears that the NTSB is concerned that a single circuit, designed to detect the presence of a train on a given segment of track, may have briefly failed, causing the train to become invisible to Metro's computerized control system. Compounding this problem was an alleged lack of redundancy in safety systems. The NTSB's recommendation thus urges transit operators to ascertain how their systems would react to a loss of train detection, and to investigate whether there are adequate redundant safeguards for such a situation.

General Motors emerged from bankruptcy protection last week, a month after Chrysler emerged from its own bankruptcy as a new subsidiary of Italian automaker Fiat. Both companies used the bankruptcy process more or less as expected, seeking to shed liabilities and reinvent themselves as, they hope, more successful enterprises. But in the key area of product liability, the two companies took very different paths, with potentially very different outcomes for their customers.

Car makers are no strangers to lawsuits alleging that faulty design or manufacture of their cars led to an accident. Product liability lawsuits are often filed against auto manufacturers in the wake of accidents, and settlements or judgments for injured consumers are not uncommon. Under bankruptcy law, however, a consumer's product-liability claim against a manufacturer may be treated as an "unsecured" claim, a type of claim that is among the last to be paid.

Another day, another recall that raises more questions about the safety of products meant to keep children safe: Kolcraft Enterprises Inc. is recalling about 1 million portable play yards because of a latch defect that poses a fall hazard to kids.

The recalled play yards were sold under the product names "Kolcraft", "Carter's", "Sesame Street", "Jeep", "Contours", "Care Bear" and "Eric Carle". They were available for purchase at stores nationwide -- including Walmart, Kmart, and Target -- from January 2000 to January 2009, for between $50 and $160.

To find out whether you have a play yard that might be affected by the recall, look for the model number (should be printed on a white sticker on one of the feet of the play yard) and check out the CPSC News Release for detailed product information, including affected product lines and model numbers.

Drugs that contain the pain-killing ingredient propoxyphene -- including the popular prescription medications Darvon and Darvocet -- will need to carry stronger warnings and detailed instructions on safe use by patients, under orders issued today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The action is aimed at reducing the growing number of fatal overdoses linked to drugs containing propoxyphene, and it's part of the FDA's larger effort to appropriately assess and regulate the safety of painkiller medications flooding the U.S. drug market.

"Prescribers and patients should be aware of propoxyphene's potential risks when used at doses higher than those recommended," Janet Woodcock, M.D, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said in an FDA News Release on the Darvon and Darvocet Order. "Therefore, the FDA is requiring manufacturers to provide more information to help physicians and patients decide whether propoxyphene is the appropriate pain therapy," Woodcock added.