Posted on 03/03/2005 7:56:48 AM PST by naturalized
A Texas jury has found Ford Motor Co. liable for a rollover accident involving a Ford Explorer in another legal setback for the manufacturer of America's most popular sport utility vehicle.
On Tuesday, the jury in Zavala County District Court ordered Ford to pay $31 million in compensatory damages in the case, Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
During the trial, the lover of one of the plaintiffs' lawyers was thrown off the jury, but the judge failed to declare a mistrial.
And there is no need for tort reform...GO BUSH
Gee, imagine that. The glass broke when the SUV rolled over. I'm shocked.
The glass breaks when you get drunk and roll your vehicle?
Who'd of thunk it?
This makes the case for tort reform.
Now we're gonna need to wear seatbelts while sitting in the jury box too! :-)
Jurors were all members of the U.N.
The standard of a safe vehicle has never been one that preserves your life no matter what happens or how stupid you drive.
To say the side glass shouldn't break is crazy. If we made it unbreakable (and added another 100 pounds to vehicle weight) some plaintiff lawyer would then sue for the dead woman in Ted Kennedy's car who drowned as she couldn't break the glass and get out.
No no no! Just ask some of our lawyer friends on FR, there aren't really any overly lavish awards being handed out in tort cases. Everything's just fiiiiiine. Go back to sleep now. That's it. All better.
A Texas jury found Ford Motor Co. liable for $31 million for the deaths of two 19-year-old women in an Explorer rollover accident.
The women, Corina Garcia and Diana Alicia Alonzo, were ejected from a 2000 Explorer in which they were passengers when it turned over in May 2003 outside San Antonio. Their families sued Ford, alleging that the company should have used stronger glass in the vehicle.
"Ford's body-engineering office did a cost evaluation, and their own documents showed this would cost only $6 to $10 a car," said Mikal Watts of Corpus Christi, Texas, the lawyer for the women's families.
On Tuesday, the Crystal City jury found Ford 90 percent liable for the $31 million. It assigned 10 percent of the responsibility to the driver of the Explorer. Under Texas law on liability, Ford must pay the entire amount because it was found more than 50 percent responsible, and the driver has no assets, Watts said. The verdict is the third against Ford in an Explorer rollover lawsuit. The company won the first 13 to go to trial before losing a $369-million jury verdict in San Diego in June.
http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/irep3e_20050303.htm
CRYSTAL CITY, Texas - A Zavala County jury has hit Ford Motor Co. with a $28 million verdict in a fatal rollover, despite evidence that the driver had been drinking before the accident and was driving at an unsafe speed.
The decision, reached in just six hours Tuesday and approved by 10 of the 11 jurors, awarded another $3 million in damages against Saul Guerrero Jr., who was behind the wheel of the 2000 Explorer at the time of the May 2003 crash.
Corina Garcia and Diana Alicia Alonzo, both 19, were thrown from the vehicle and killed. Passenger Arturo Guerrero, 18, and driver Saul Guerrero Jr., 19, were also ejected but not seriously injured.
The jury found Ford 90 percent responsible for the deaths, and Guerrero Jr. 10 percent responsible.
Plaintiff's lawyers had wanted up to $100 million in damages, arguing most of the blame lay with the automaker for using tempered side glass despite learning more than 30 years ago that laminated glass reduced the risk of passengers being ejected in a wreck.
"Saul Guerrero caused the accident but Ford caused the injury and the deaths," attorney Mikal Watts told jurors in closing arguments. "The evidence is overwhelming that a safer alternative design existed. It would have cost them $6 to $10 a car."
Ford lawyers said the vehicle glass met all safety standards. The company now uses laminated side glass in some of its more expensive models - but they said increased safety isn't the main reason.
"The impairment of the driver caused the accident. He was driving too fast on a caliche road at 2:30 in the morning, and no one was wearing seat belts," lawyer J.R. Rodriguez said. "Ninety-eight percent of the people walk away from rollover accidents if they are wearing seat belts."
The trial was interrupted last week when Ford lawyers discovered one of the jurors, Diana Palacios, was the girlfriend of plaintiffs' lawyer Jesse Gamez. In a hearing over a defense request for a mistrial, evidence was presented that Palacios, the Crystal City city manager, had also solicited two of the plaintiffs for Gamez to represent.
After refusing to grant a mistrial, Judge Amado Abascal removed Palacios. Another juror was excused at the same time because of a death in the family, and both sides agree to continue with only 11 members. The trial lasted two weeks.
Crystal City is 95 miles southwest of San Antonio.
http://www.heralddemocrat.com/articles/2005/03/03/texas_news/iq_1763062.txt
Tort reform or idiot jury reform? What we have here is the results of the MSM campaign against SUV's
What federal law do you propose to prevent this kind of abusive verdict?
Is there anything to the temepered glass argument? After all, subsequently manufactured vehicles of the same type were equipped with it...
How much did the lawyer of this accident get? Should have sued the SUV since it was the one that decided to roll over. The driving drunk, fast driving, broken glass etc. was not the fault of the human.
America the Ridiculous. Why would anybody even desire to manufacture or sell any product that has the slightest chance of causing any type of mishap.
See tagline! It's not special for this thread, either.
My mom's friend's daughter was carpooling with a guy who refused to wear a seatbelt in her car. They wrecked and he made a lot of cash for his injuries, even though he would have probably been unharmed if he had worn one and let me repeat, HE REFUSED TO WEAR ONE!
Actions, meet consequences, I think you two may have met somewhere before, a long, long time ago.
Why do the defendants ask for jury trials in cases like this? Or is this done automatically? I hope manufacturors charge more for products in states that allow rediculous awards like this.
tempered glass is significantly stronger than laminated. Laminated will crack and shatter, but will stay together. However, since it is not locked into the frame by adhesive or gasket, it will simply fold over because the laminate is simply a thin piece of plastic (polyvinylbuterate)
Some luxury cars are now using laminated glass on side windows. This is for acoustic reasons, not safety.
If juries keep running amok with rewards like this ($369 mil in a similar case), there are going to be dire, dire consequences, including huge increases in costs for buying goods and high unemployment because companies will not be able to stay afloat. The lawyers really do run the world and they're doing a crappy job.
Are there any picture of the car after the rollover?
Well, when a trial lawyer can "shop" for a judge, "shop" for the right court and pick the jury they want - yeah - you are going to idiot juries...
This is an obviously excessive verdict. Generally, if it shocks the judicial conscience it will be thrown out and retried. That presupposes this judge has a conscience. Who ended up taking the blame is also totally wrong. But this is the fault of the JURY.
How would tort reform help this?
Where in this article does it say that the glass broke?
This isn't the actual headline, btw.
One that says that if the manufacturer builds a product that complies with a design expressly allowed in an applicable federal regulation, that the product cannot be found to be defective by reason of its design.
Is there anything to the temepered glass argument?
This is exactly the kind of thinking that plaintiffs' lawyers want from juries. Which part of glass breaking in a rollover accident don't you understand? All glass breaks in a rollover accident.
After all, subsequently manufactured vehicles of the same type were equipped with it...
Again, this thinking is a plaintiffs' lawyers' dream. Just because a manufacturer changes something, doesn't mean they were changing it to remake an unsafe product into a safe one. Laminated glass in side windows is for sound reduction and to slow down criminals. It is not a substitute for seat belts.
This is ridiculous. And we will just allow this continue until our auto companies are bankrupted with these absurd lawsuits.
Tart reform, too.
This isn't really correct, and is simply wrong if you throw an unrestrained occupant against the window.
In most products liability cases the court employs a risk/utility analysis - does the cost of a safer alternative design outweigh the risks? Your example is not a very good case, and may not survive a summary judgment motion. No manufacturer owes a duty to ensure the safety of occupants under all crash conditions. What they are responsibel for, generally, is the amount of injury that could have been prevented by the safer design. In this case, the safer alternative design costed $6-10 in a probably $25,000 vehicle. Occupants that were not ejected lived - the ones that were died. Tough facts for Ford.
So how can tort reform help?
How did I guess that the "plaintiffs" were Hispanic.
There's a lawyer in Texas named Jim Adler who constantly advertises himself on TV as the "tough, smart lawyer", (I kid you not). He's constantly advertising about the amounts of "settlements" his clients get. The ads are hilarious (if not sick and depressing) and blatant about the amount of money you can win if you sue, sue, sue.
"Burned, loss of limb, hurt, wreck, Vioxx, murder, death kill", call Jim Adler, the TOUGH, SMART LAWYER!"
The ads are available in Spanish too. "Get the settlement that "yew" deserve!".
Certainly a proposition a jury could accept or reject. Plaintiffs made a case here that the laminated would have preventd the ejection of the occupants. So it's a jury issue.
Stupid system or stupid jury?
They are joking right?
BTTT
Texas is known for runaway verdicts, because judges are elected and backed by plaintiff's trial lawyers.
Forum shopping is a problem, but less so in tort cases. In tort cases venues is generally proper in the county where one of the parties resides or does business or where the accident happened. You get forum shopping big time in class action cases, where you have many parties living all over the country.
What would you propose as far as reform for venue in tort cases with just one plaintiff?
And which of the rejected occupants had there seat belts on as required by law?
What we have here is another scum sucking lawyer making it imposible to do business in the USA.
Actually, the PVB layer is designed to prevent the occupant from ejecting through the glass. Part of the head may break glass and PVB, but will not take the entire body through. Additionally, the windshield adhesive holds the glass onto the frame of the vehicle, preventing release and ejection.
Once the glass cracks, it loses structural integrity, but will still hold together enough to prevent ejection.
The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards test(#212/208) is actually designed for a frontal collision at 30mph with dual airbags and un-restrained dummies. Because of the windshield, ejection simply does not occur out the front window.
Great photo's. You'll notice that thay had to cut the windshield with a sawzall.
This is a good argument, but it is not without its problems. This has been used effectively in the labeling of hazardous products. What federal power do you propose supports this intrusion into the power of the states to conduct their power to regulate torts, which should be reserved to them under the 11th amendment. Maybe the power to regulate commerce between the states? Excessive used of federal power, IMHO. It also makes the legislative process open to corruption. How much lobbying or campaign contributions will it take to get your cookie cutter regulation passed? Standards are fine - the fereral government should not have the power to make them preclusive. How is promoting perclusive federal regulation "conservative"?
This is exactly the kind of thinking that plaintiffs' lawyers want from juries. Which part of glass breaking in a rollover accident don't you understand? All glass breaks in a rollover accident.
Yes, it is, and that is why I have challenged you with it. And it makes the point here that what you have is a stupid jury. Yet, the tort system takes the lightning strikes and the jury escapes criticism.
Again, this thinking is a plaintiffs' lawyers' dream. Just because a manufacturer changes something, doesn't mean they were changing it to remake an unsafe product into a safe one. Laminated glass in side windows is for sound reduction and to slow down criminals. It is not a substitute for seat belts.
Same point as previous.
Stupid, ignorant loser, knownothing, idiotic, waste of brain cells and oxygen, get the BIGAUTO Company stupid jury.
Oh, so it's the lawyers fault and not the jury who rejected the good sense argument you propose?
So what's your solution, "Kill all the lawyers"? Or just the ones you don't like?
Both
EXACTLY!
Read #13 again:
"Passenger Arturo Guerrero, 18, and driver Saul Guerrero Jr., 19, were also ejected but not seriously injured."
The plaintiffs' attorneys would have liked you on the jury, too.
Not wearing your seatbelt is dangerous to you and others in your vehicle, and in this case, caused two deaths.
How about this for tort reform: if you don't use the available safety features on a product, and if you had used the safety feature you would not have been injured, you lose.
So what is stupid about the system, which you would reform?
Agree 100%. I can go one better - Until 1900 - 1950 tort suits were barred by the doctrine of contributory negligence. If your negligence contributed to your injuries to even the slightest degree, you would have no recovery, unless the defendnat was guilty od wilful and wanton misconduct. Now we have comparative negligence, to prevent "harsh results", where the amount of the recovery is reduced by the percentage that your own fault contributes to your injuries.
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