It took a jury less than an hour Thursday to dismiss a $3 million federal lawsuit against Lifeline Systems, a medical alarm company blamed in the 2003 death of a disabled Franklin County man.

"We just didn't feel there was enough evidence" against Lifeline, jury foreman Henry Hartman said afterward.

The situation outlined during the four-day trial in Roanoke was a sad one, attorneys for both sides agreed. Robert "Mac" Cundiff, knowing he had heart problems, had installed an alarm system at his home in Scruggs so that if he was incapacitated, someone would come care for his 40-year-old son, who had Down syndrome and suffered from mobility problems that confined him to bed.

But when Cundiff, 70, died from a heart attack in August 2003, the alarm did not work. His son, Allen Cundiff, died days later from dehydration.

Relatives sued Lifeline, saying that when the alarm's reset button was not pushed for 24 hours, help was supposed to be summoned by the company's service center.

In fact, that was exactly what had happened about three years before the Cundiffs' deaths, when Mac Cundiff forgot to push the button and emergency personnel were dispatched, said plaintiff's attorney Kevin Ryan of Charlottesville.

Evidence in the case indicated there were problems with the Cundiffs' phone line around the time of their deaths, possibly caused by a lightning strike. But Ryan argued that Lifeline should have provided some sort of backup or checked when the daily signals did not arrive.

"We don't abandon people who have special needs. It matters how you treat people. ... Lifeline's system was like an umbrella that didn't work on a rainy day," Ryan said.

But Lifeline's attorney, Alan Herman of Atlanta, said the company was clear about its system's limitations. Mac Cundiff signed a service contract that included a warning that Lifeline's equipment depended on a working phone line. A blinking light on the unit placed in the Cundiffs' home showed when the phone line was not functioning.

Lifeline, which is based in Massachusetts and is part of the Philips electronics group, has 344,000 subscribers across the country. It cannot respond each time one of them has a phone problem, Herman said.

Everyone wishes things had gone differently for the Cundiffs, Herman said, saying he was expressing condolences both personally and on behalf of Lifeline Systems.

But, he added, "Being sorry someone has passed away is not the same as being liable or responsible for their death."

The lawsuit filed by Terry Cundiff, the administrator of Mac Cundiff's estate, began in Franklin County Circuit Court and moved to federal court last year.