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Man Sues Neighbor Claiming Wi-Fi Made Him Sick

Posted by samzenpus on from the bad-waves dept.

OrangeMonkey11 writes "A Santa Fe man who claims to suffer from 'electromagnetic sensitivities' has sued his neighbor after she refused to stop using wireless devices. 59-year-old Arthur Firstenberg claims his sensitivity can be set off by cellphones, routers and other electronic devices. From the article: 'Firstenberg, 59, wanted Raphaela Monribot to limit her use of the devices. "I asked her to work with me," he said. "Basically, she refused." So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics. "Being the target of this lawsuit has affected me very adversely," Monribot said Friday in response to e-mailed questions. "I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"

27 of 574 comments (clear)

  1. the more attention you give morons... by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the more they'll act like morons.

    I wish reporters wouldn't give this type of crap the time of day.

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    1. Re:the more attention you give morons... by eparker05 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "the more attention you give morons, the more they'll act like morons."

      I disagree with your sentiment. If you publicly embarrass somebody for acting stupidly. They often think twice before acting stupidly again. What we need is more bad press for these types of people, like that town in Africa where everybody claimed to be getting sick from radio waves until they were told that the tower had been turned off two weeks prior. Also there is the guy who became violently ill only when cell phones rang (but not when they communicated with the cell tower silently). Yea. Lots of stupid people more need attention.

      Scientology too... but that is another thread.

    2. Re:the more attention you give morons... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We had something similar happening here, where people started complaining about the electromagnetic field from a cell repeater tower.

      PR statement from the telco: "Gee, wonder what it'll be like when we turn it on in a few weeks..."

      Needless to say that the court tossed the suit without a hearing.

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    3. Re:the more attention you give morons... by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 5, Informative

      eparker05 is correct, it was Africa.

      Which is not to say that similar events have not happened in many places.

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    4. Re:the more attention you give morons... by TheSpoom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just give the idiot plaintiff a double blind test, and we can move on with our lives.

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    5. Re:the more attention you give morons... by osgeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I disagree with your sentiment. If you publicly embarrass somebody for acting stupidly. They often think twice before acting stupidly again.

      Well, you've got two problems with this disagreement.

      1. People rationalize pretty much any behavior they intentionally exhibit. The most hardened of criminals in lock-up feel that they don't deserve it. What they did wasn't that wrong, or society made them do it, or they were justified because of some wrong they perceived against themselves. It's no different with this guy. What he's doing is right no matter what the judge says, what his neighbors say, what the general public says. It wouldn't be very surprising if it were shown that he deceptively uses a laptop or visual observations to know that his neighbor is using wifi or her cell phone. I'm sure he'd view these things as justified because of "what she's doing".

      If I'm wrong, he should go for the Randi prize. I bet they'd agree to test him if he claimed to be sensitive to the types of EMR described in the story.

      2. Many people do feed off of the negative attention. Just look at the enormous amount of effort that Slashdot editors and the moderation system go to in order to fend off the trolls. Trolls are the people that get a warm fuzzy feeling when they see someone frowning or imagine that they're frowning.

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    6. Re:the more attention you give morons... by sharkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, but, which eye do you poke out first?

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    7. Re:the more attention you give morons... by Otto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Being able to sense electromagnetic fields, using no devices or other assistance, in a double blind trial, would definitely be worthy of the $1,000,000 from JREF.

      http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

      Anybody who claims to be sensitive to this sort of thing and who has not won the million bucks is basically a flat-out liar.

      --
      - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
    8. Re:the more attention you give morons... by IICV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That only works if the reporting is embarrassing. What tends to happen in the United States is that the reporters try to pretend that they are unbiased, and as such give equal weight to both the retarded side and the rational side - after all if there are two sides to an argument, then obviously there's a 50/50 chance that either side is true, right?

      Thus, some moron like this guy and his woo-filled doctor* get put up against Dr. Bob Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland. That's not embarrassing at all; it puts these two idiots on an equal level with someone who's spent his entire career studying the subject. It's fucking flattering.

      *Just because you have an MD doesn't mean you're qualified to determine whether "electrosensitivity" is a condition, no matter what the gullible reporter thinks. Do you think that a lady who pushes the always-vague "toxins" theory of chronic disease knows anything about electromagnetism beyond what she learned in Freshman physics?

    9. Re:the more attention you give morons... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Funny

      Anybody who claims to be sensitive to this sort of thing and who has not won the million bucks is basically a flat-out liar.

      Funny story. Once on /. someone was trying to claim that James Randi was rejecting legitimate claims of Super Powers. They of course failed miserably, but in the course of trying they linked to a randi.org forum post that simply made my day. It was the most awesome post I'd ever seen, at least on this topic.

      It was a post by a man who had previously submitted an application to be tested (I think it was for EM sensitivity, but it might have been dousing or something), but -- and here's the awesome part -- he was retracting his application because he'd decided to actually conduct experiments with at least a single-blind format, and concluded based on his experiment that he didn't really have super powers.

      Holy fuck. Every so often something happens that gives me a little hope for the human species.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    10. Re:the more attention you give morons... by Sanat · · Score: 5, Funny

      Damn Tom, They moved Santa Fe from New Mexico to California?

      Cool... that probably raised the IQ in both places.

      --
      And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
  2. Lucky for him by Grashnak · · Score: 5, Funny

    He's lucky he doesn't live in a universe where "electromagnetism" is everywhere, all the time. Oh, wait...

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  3. The waves are everywhere! by COMON$ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok people, do you have any CLUE how many radio waves are going through your body at any given time? I mean seriously do people think that GPS's, Cell Phones, Watches, all have some kind of invisible tether? Your best hope is to find a cave in the mountains. Not a home in suburbia...

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    1. Re:The waves are everywhere! by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

      No they don't. Most people are horribly undereducated about the world around them. I blame High Fructose Corn syrup consumption.

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      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  4. Homeowner? His responsibility by Evardsson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If he is a homeowner, how he protects himself from his surrounding environment is his responsibility. If he really believes he is being made sick by electro-magnetic energies around him maybe he needs to wrap his house in a Faraday cage and shut the hell up.

    You can't sue your neighbor when their cherry tree blooms and sets off your allergies. Same thing.

    --
    Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
    1. Re:Homeowner? His responsibility by slim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For that to work, he'd have to believe that Faraday cages work.
      Since he clearly has no truck with science, why would he believe that?

  5. Re:In this litigious society... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 5, Funny

    Blasphemy! I'm going to sue you for that statement, you insensitive clod!

  6. So presumably a lawyer took this case by Labcoat+Samurai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is the irritating thing about it. You can harass people with frivolous lawsuits, and, while the judge may throw them out, the lawyers still get paid. Provided the guy's lawyer asks for his fee up front, what is his disincentive to file lawsuits like this one? I really wish lawyers could receive some sort of punishment or censure for wasting the court's time and enabling harassment.

  7. Mercy by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect that the plaintiff is suffering from some significant mental health issues. Maybe paranoia or hypochondria or something. My guess is that this guy isn't suing because he's a jerk, but because he thinks the issue is real.

    Hopefully the suit will be dismissed with a minimum of fuss and expense, and the guy can get the help he probably needs.

    1. Re:Mercy by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, the guy is simply a jerk. He knew before she even moved in that she uses these devices. He's trying to cash in and from reading the article this women is too afraid to even leave her house because of this dick and his friend.

      From the article..

      I have always made myself available to them at all hours," she said. "We communicate often through Skype, Gmail chat, video and audio sessions."

      Firstenberg knew this when he mentioned to her that the Casados Street house was for rent, but after Monribot moved in, he and a friend insisted that she turn off her Wi-Fi router and other equipment. She tried to comply, but felt harassed.

  8. Re:In this litigious society... by Moryath · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm going to sue you for insulting all of us insensitive clods, you insensitive clod!

  9. She should have turned-off the devices by commodore64_love · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...without telling the Moron, and then let the moron keep insisting "your wireless makes me sick". It would be funny. Especially in court.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  10. Re:At least... by LingNoi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even if it makes it to court the guy won't. I'll be there with a grid of routers, cell phones and all type of other EM emitting radiation devices.

  11. Re:Picture in the summary has it right by IBBoard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you in America and seeking large sums of money for no real cause?

  12. I think I have a solution by Takionbrst · · Score: 5, Funny

    Follow me here: The average household is somewhere around 2400 square feet. Let's assume for simplicity sake that it's a box measuring 49'x49'x10'. That makes for about 6800 square feet of interior surface area. The skin depth for gold at 2.4 GHz is pretty close to 200nm, but to be sure that the vast majority of the signal is stopped lets assume a coating of 1um thickness. 6800 square feet multiplied by 1um yields a volume of about 6e-4 m^3 of gold. Multiplying this by the density of gold (~20gm/cm^3) yields about 12 kilograms of gold. The last time I checked, gold was something close to $1200 dollars an ounce, which works out to be about $508k. So all the guy really wants to do is use the settlement money to WiFi proof his house. And have a gold plated interior. And a little bit left over for hookers and blow.

  13. Re:Picture in the summary has it right by mea37 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm impressed. There are so many solid arguments against those who claim sensitivity to consumer electronics, I didn't think anyone could possibly come forward asserting such a poor one as yours.

    If you tried to apply your "lactose intolerant" analogy, don't you suppose your opponent would point out that the makers of your favorite foods don't project those foods into your home against your wishes?

    If these sensitivities were real (though I very much doubt that they are), he would have a point. Just because something has become socially common doesn't mean it's ok to do if it later turns out that it harms others in their own home. The key phrase is if they were real; so this point is moot unless someone can show some credible scientific basis for anything beyond the psychosomatic.

    I don't know if this guy really believes he's sensitive or if he's just a complete asshat. It sure looks like he figured he saw a way to make a quick buck by convincing someone he knew uses electronics to move in to the next house over.

  14. Re:In this litigious society... by Mitchell314 · · Score: 5, Funny

    And what's with this discrimination against sensitive clods? I'll be seeing you all in court.

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