According to a majority panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, a group of Pittsburgh firefighters did not prove that a different design for a fire truck siren they say permanently damaged their hearing would have been safer.
On Aug. 20 in a 2-1 decision, Superior Court judges Mary Jane Bowes and Paula Francisco Ott upheld a granting of summary judgment to Federal Signal Corporation and dismissing the case brought by firefighters Ronald M. Dunlap, Dino Abbot, Keith Bradley, Brian Cavanaugh, Glenn Gasiorowski, Roger Maher and Carl Roell.
Judge Anne E. Lazarus dissented from the majority of her colleagues.
Plaintiffs Maher and Roell serve on the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire, and are among 247 firefighters who claimed Federal Signal’s Q2B siren was defectively-designed and caused them to suffer permanent hearing loss.