National consumer-rights Law firm FeganScott has filed a lawsuit against Apple and Samsung for allegedly exceeding the federal RF radiation limit. The firm hired a third-party lab to determine the level of RF radiation generated by devices manufactured by the two companies.
The independent results confirm that RF radiation levels are well over the federal exposure limit, sometimes exceeding it by 500 percent when phones are used as marketed by the manufacturers.
Beth Fegan, the managing partner of FeganScott and the attorney representing the consolidated suit, which was filed after the firm hired the industry-recognized lab, says that smartphone manufacturers must take responsibility for misleading consumers about the levels of RF radiation emitted by their smartphones when used against or close to the user’s skin.
The FCC-accredited lab tested six different brand-new smartphone models at various distances, ranging from zero to 10 millimeters to measure the amount of RF radiation released when touching or close to the body. When tested at two millimeters, the iPhone 8 and Samsung Galaxy S8 were more than twice the federal exposure limit. At zero millimeters, the iPhone 8 was five times more than the federal (FCC) exposure limit, and the Samsung Galaxy S8 was more than three times the federal exposure limit.
The consolidated suit filed by FeganScott includes a comprehensive list of all named plaintiffs and includes the extensive FCC-accredited lab test results from all the smartphones tested: iPhone 7+, iPhone 8, iPhone XR, Galaxy S8, Galaxy S9, and Galaxy S10.
The test settings reflected the smartphones’ actual use conditions, rather than the conditions set by manufacturers in order to produce results that appear to be safe for consumers.
According to Pew Research Center, 96 percent of Americans own a cell phone, and of those, 81 percent own a smartphone. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization, reports that 29 percent of American teens sleep with their phones in bed with them, which makes the radiation level findings especially alarming.
Filed on Thursday (5th December 2019) in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, the lawsuit seeks to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone owners. The suit asks the court to order the defendants to pay for medical monitoring and damages.
