Tech Shout!

A lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court in San Jose, by a Louisiana man says that using Apple’s iPod can result in loss of hearing.

The iPod players are “inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss,” according to the complaint, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., on behalf of John Kiel Patterson of Louisiana.

Patterson’s suit said he bought an iPod last year, but does not specify whether he suffered hearing loss from the device.

“He’s bought a product which is not safe to use as currently sold on the market,” said Patterson’s lawyer, Steve W. Berman, of Seattle. He added, “He’s paying for a product that’s defective, and the law is pretty clear that if someone sold you a defective product they have a duty to repair it.”

Apple has sold more than 42 million of the devices since they went on sale in 2001, including 14 million in the fourth quarter last year. The devices can produce sounds of more than 115 decibels, a volume that can damage the hearing of a person exposed to the sound for more than 28 seconds per day, according to the complaint.

Although the iPod is more popular than other types of portable music players, its capacity to cause noise-induced hearing isn’t any higher, experts said.

Furthermore, the suit accuses Apple of carelessness by including phrases like “crank up the tunes” within its user manuals.

An Apple Computer Inc. spokeswoman, Kristin Huguet, declined to comment on the lawsuit.