Judge Issues Injunction in Suit Against Life Alert : Consumers: Order restricts the sales tactics of the Chatsworth company marketing emergency response systems.

A preliminary injunction has been issued against the makers of the Life Alert emergency response system, prohibiting the Chatsworth firm from using what consumer protection attorneys have described as deceptive sales pitches, authorities said Friday.

The nationwide Life Alert Emergency Response Inc. is best known for its television ads depicting a gray-haired woman who has fallen down the stairs and moans, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” In another, a man suffers a heart attack alone in his garden.

Life Alert’s system hinges on a portable “help button” that triggers a device similar to an answering machine that dials the Life Alert office in Chatsworth. There, employees in turn contact emergency dispatchers.

In September, district attorneys from nine California counties, including Los Angeles, and the state attorney general filed a $2-million suit against the company, aimed at its high-pressure sales tactics, which they alleged were used to unfairly coerce the elderly and the disabled into paying up to $5,000 for the systems.

The order, issued Wednesday in Sonoma County where the case is being heard, prohibits the company or its salespeople from making misrepresentations about Life Alert’s relationship to 911 emergency dispatch systems, from fabricating horror stories about victims of crime or medical emergencies and from drawing out its sales presentations longer than three hours without the customer’s written consent.

But in their first public comments on the suit, Life Alert attorneys said the injunction would have little effect because the company had never done most of the things it was accused of doing.

“Some of the original allegations were so off base, it was like they were asking you when you last beat your wife,” Granada Hills attorney Tamila C. Jensen said.

The suit was based on statements from about 40 former customers who complained that Life Alert salespeople spent hours trying to scare them into buying the system. The salespeople also told the customers that the company had better access to emergency dispatch systems than the general public, the suit alleged.

Since the suit was filed, the nine district attorneys have received at least 260 more calls from dissatisfied customers with similar stories, said Jeffrey Holtzman, a deputy district attorney in Sonoma County.

Attorneys for Life Alert said Friday that in most areas of the state the company does have access to different--though not necessarily faster--emergency lines than the public, which are designated for alarm companies. They said they were not certain if Los Angeles is one of the areas where they have that access.

“It’s a designated line,” said Robert S. Boyd, a Santa Rosa attorney. “It’s better sometimes and sometimes it’s not better. The main advantage is that Life Alert does not have to go through 911 . . . where all the congestion occurs.”

Holtzman praised Superior Court Judge Rex H. Sater for issuing the order, which he said “provided consumers with a number of important protections” while the suit is continuing.

Boyd said he considered the injunction a partial victory for Life Alert because the district attorneys had sought to have the in-home sale sessions reduced to an hour and a half. The judge allowed three hours, plus an extra hour if customers sign permission forms.

The lawsuit alleges that salespeople are taught to stay hours on end to wear down the elderly customers. But Boyd and Jensen said the salespeople only stay as long as is necessary to answer all the potential customers’ questions and, if the service is purchased, to work out its details and record medical and emergency information.

“These are essentially burglar alarm systems,” Jensen said. “It’s not as easy as selling a magazine.”