Over the course of one's life, one picks up some folk wisdom that's always good to follow. Never use a match to find the source of a gas leak. Never eat anything bigger than your head (which was the title of an illustrated book of such cautionary apothegms by cartoonist Bernard Kliban). Don't run while holding scissors. Don't stand in an open field during a thunderstorm holding a metal pole.
And to that list can now be added, "Never insert anything into your ear that's on fire."
That's not an entirely new idea. In the 1965 war movie, "36 Hours," James Garner plays a man who knows the date and time of the upcoming D-Day invasion. When one of his colleagues expresses confidence that Garner's character would never reveal this information, Garner replies that that's because no one has tried "using my ear as an ashtray."
So what is one to make, then, of Anne Danaher -- whose troubles cannot be blamed on the Gestapo?
Back in 2003, Danaher purchased two "ear candles" from Wild Oats Market, a store in a suburb of Kansas City. She kept them, unused, for three years, but then in 2006 had a problem that she attributed to having gotten water in her ear.
It's actually pretty easy to see where this is going.
"Ear candles" are cylindrical or cone-shaped wax tubes that will supposedly remove ear wax and debris from the ear. The narrow end is supposed to be inserted in the ear and the candle is lighted; this allegedly produces some kind of suction or "drawing" through the tube, which then, at the end of the process, leaves a residue of all of the bad stuff that used to be in one's ear. The candle is also supposed to be inserted through a small hole in a plate, protecting the "patient" from dripping wax.
When Danaher found that her ear was plugged, she called Wild Oats Market to find out if they could recommend anyone to perform this procedure, but was told that Wild Oats didn't even sell the candles any longer. She was referred to a different store, The Herb Garden, and to a woman named Karen Kenney, who was the daughter of that store's owner.
Kenney came to Danaher's home, and noticed that Danaher's ear candles from 2003 looked thicker than the ones they sold at The Herb Garden. Unfortunately, Kenney's experience with ear candling consisted of some instruction from her mother, and of reviewing a pamphlet that accompanied the ear candles that were sold at The Herb Garden -- which were labeled "authentic reproductions of the ancient so-called 'ear candles'" and also advised purchasers that the candles were "sold as novelty items only," helpfully suggesting that ear candles "make amusing birthday candles."
But Danaher and Kenney, who was paid $20 to perform the procedure, went forward. Kenney inserted one of the candles into Danaher's ear and lit it as Danaher lays on her left side. When the candle had burned down about three inches, Danaher felt hot wax roll into her ear and told Kenney that her ear was burned. Danaher attributed hearing loss to this result.
Danaher filed a lawsuit against Wild Oats Market, Kenney, Wally's Natural Products (which manufactured the ear candles Kenney had used) and just about anyone else she and her lawyer could think of, which ended up in Kansas' federal district court. The case produced a flurry of rulings spread across six -- count 'em, six -- different court opinions, all issued within a few months by (and I'm not making this up) federal Magistrate Judge David Waxse. He was presumably chosen to hear the case (so to speak) just because of semantic irony.
There were challenges to the expertise of the doctor Danaher wanted to call as an expert witness; an attempt by Wild Oats (ultimately successful) to get out of the case because all that it had done was to sell the candles, but hadn't instructed Danaher how to use them; and various other disputes about the legal theories that Danaher raised against the defendants. Danaher's case was eventually heard by a jury, but when Judge Waxse agreed to dismiss Wild Oats at the close of the trial, Danaher and Kenney settled the case for an undisclosed sum.
And so, to that list of life's little lessons can be added another, now doubly clear moral: if you happen to purchase some "ear candles," use them -- if at all -- only as amusing way to decorate a birthday cake.
Frank Zotter, Jr. is a Ukiah attorney.
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