Big Foot

Some news from Japan. What kind of human toddler can cause 50 to 65 decibels worth of noise just by walking?

Hat tip- Japundit
Linked to- Big Dog, Blue Star, Cao, Jo,

A Tokyo court has ordered the father of a toddler to pay 360,000 yen in compensation to a neighbor after it ruled that the infant's loud footsteps constituted noise pollution.

"The footsteps surpassed tolerable limits," Yasushi Nakamura, judge at the Tokyo District Court, said in handing down the ruling.

The plaintiff, who lives in Tokyo's Itabashi-ku, filed a suit against the father demanding 2.4 million yen in damages because of disturbances caused by the loud footsteps of the toddler who moved into the second floor of the same condo complex around April 2004. His wife also suffered from insomnia because of the noise.

The plaintiff had complained about the annoying sound to the father of the 3-to-4-year-old toddler, but the father ignored him. The plaintiff then placed a noise meter in his home and recorded that the footsteps upstairs measured 50 to 65 decibels.

The ruling recognized that the footsteps of the toddler were excessively loud, sometimes lasting deep into the night. "The father should have responded sincerely (to the plaintiff's complaint) and improved the family's lifestyle through disciplining the toddler," the ruling said.