Explorer Suit Costs Ford

[nsap]

A jury in Texas found Ford Motor Co. liable for $31 million in 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 of San Antonio. Their families sued Ford, alleging the automaker 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," Mikal Watts of the Watts Law Firm of Corpus Christi, Texas, the lawyer for the women's families, told Bloomberg News.

The verdict, awarded Tuesday by a Crystal City, Texas, jury, is the third against Ford in an Explorer rollover lawsuit. The company won the first 13 cases that went to trial before losing a $369 million jury verdict in San Diego in June. Ford is defending the Explorer SUV in more than two dozen trials this year in which the vehicle rolled over.

Ford plans to appeal the verdict.

"There was no credible evidence introduced at this trial to support a jury finding that a vehicle defect caused this accident or the death and injuries," Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said.

The reputation of the Explorer, the nation's best-selling SUV, was hurt by a U.S. investigation into at least 271 highway deaths involving tread separation by Bridgestone Corp.'s Firestone tires, mostly on Explorers. Ford settled hundreds of suits over rollovers related to tire failures.

None of the suits against Ford involving tread separation was decided by a trial verdict. Ford has been sued several hundred times over Explorer rollovers in cases that don't involve tire failures, including the one filed by the Garcia and Alonzo families.

Alonzo and Garcia were ejected and killed after driver Saul Guerrero Jr. lost control of the Explorer when he missed a sharp turn on a highway and went onto an unpaved road, Watts said.

"This is such a poor-handling vehicle that if you just turn the steering wheel one-half of a quarter turn, it causes the vehicle to spin out sideways" in an emergency, Watts said.

A third passenger, who also was ejected, suffered an ankle injury, Watts said. The jury awarded $15 million each to the Alonzo and Garcia families; $500,000 to the third passenger, Arturo Guerrero Jr.; and $500,000 in punitive damages against Ford.

The jury found Ford 90 percent liable for the accident and assigned 10 percent of the responsibility to the driver. Under Texas liability law, Ford must pay the entire amount because it was found more than 50 percent responsible and the driver has no assets, Watts said. Ford said it is responsible for the full amount

More: http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosins...E01-106007.htm

[desmo9]

Countersue the plaintiffs for the cost of negative publicity. That's the only way to stop this garbage. And if the driver is 40% responsible, they're effectively 0% responsible? What kind of garbage is that?

Thicker glass, huh? Shoulda, coulda, woulda. There are a million ways to add $10 to the cost of a vehicle, each yielding a marginal benefit. In the end, you have a $50K Explorer that weighs 6000 pounds. I don't want a bunch of dumb hicks on a jury making decisions about the way my car is designed, how much it costs, how hot my coffee can be, how much my ski lift tickets ultimately cost, etc.

Time to change our system.

[neotoxin1]

Originally Posted by desmo9

Countersue the plaintiffs for the cost of negative publicity. That's the only way to stop this garbage. And if the driver is 40% responsible, they're effectively 0% responsible? What kind of garbage is that?

Thicker glass, huh? Shoulda, coulda, woulda. There are a million ways to add $10 to the cost of a vehicle, each yielding a marginal benefit. In the end, you have a $50K Explorer that weighs 6000 pounds. I don't want a bunch of dumb hicks on a jury making decisions about the way my car is designed, how much it costs, how hot my coffee can be, how much my ski lift tickets ultimately cost, etc.

Time to change our system.

The plaintiffs are right, I wish ford would have invested more money into stronger glass and decided to save money by not installing seatbelts. That way tragedies like these can be avoided

[desmo9]

Originally Posted by neotoxin1

The plaintiffs are right, I wish ford would have invested more money into stronger glass and decided to save money by not installing seatbelts. That way tragedies like these can be avoided

And stronger though it may be, when someone else gets hurt a lawyer will again say ... "should have been stronger glass for only $10 more a car" ...heck, why not put bullet-proof glass on all cars? Do you understand tradeoffs? The glass used was likely not just a nod to cost-cutting. Americans want to drive themselves to work in big SUVs. Gas gets expensive. The Feds mandate CAFE. The vehicles have to get lighter. Glass is very heavy. You do the math. The hindsight quarterbacking of our legal system is getting old. All about what "should" have been done. If they're so good, why aren't they making the proactive decisions about automotive design. In fact, often what they claim "should have been" actually "shouldn't have". If I want more mileage on my car, and the price I pay for light weight are lighter-weight components, so be it. That's a tradeoff. Automakers spend alot of research dollars finding what they think are the best tradeoffs. That's what auto engineering is all about.

And btw, your seatbelt comment is illogical. What's that mean? Ford should saved money by not using seatbelts ... and used that money to use thicker glass? Nuts.

[tgagneguam]

Deaths almost always are unfortunate and tragic. That's for sure.

However, bad things [in the form of accidents] are going to happen in life, and sometimes that means people will die. It happened in the case of the plaintiffs in this Explorer case, and it happened in the case of the Twin Towers. It happens frequently. I'm certain a trial lawyer can spin it into negligence, but the bottom line is is that not every accident requires a centimillion dollar lawsuit. That makes me suspicious that that's more about cash than about the loss of life.

And don't get me wrong; I doubt that this Explorer case is not some grand scheme on Ford's part in the same way the Germans planned Auschwitz, though the trial lawyers would have you believe that.

And I'm a propronent of a more British(?) court style, in which the plaintiffs reimburse the defendants if the plaintiffs lose. In that way, you might very well limit frivolous lawsuits. And the poor would still be able to sue; their trial lawyers would have to step up to the plate and guarantee that they would cover the plaintiff's costs if the case was not successful in court.

[goblue]

Exactly, this is really poor logic. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find...
-An accident that could have been avoided by $10 more of suspension components
-$10 more spent on brakes may have allowed a few more to be avoided
-$10 may buy another 20 hp to allow something to be avoided
-Or how about $10 of better tires
-Or $10 bucks worth of steel for the side impact beams
We could do this all day and easily add 5K to that explorer, and it would still flip over when the driver cranks the wheel to the left doing 80mph.

The problem is that the accidents are rare where these items would help - therefore if the auto industry is anything like the aviation industry - they calculate the number of lives saved and divide it into the cost of implementing it on the vehicle that year as well as add'l gas an maintenece costs. You find the incremental cost of saving a life and if its over a threshold, you don't do it. This is why you don't have shoulder belts on commercial aircraft. The incremental cost per life was around 20 million. The healthcare industry does the exact same thing - thats why colonoscopies at 50 and mammograms are recommended, while annual CT scans looking for cancer aren't.

[goblue]

Originally Posted by desmo9

And btw, your seatbelt comment is illogical. What's that mean? Ford should saved money by not using seatbelts ... and used that money to use thicker glass? Nuts.

I think he was being sarcastic.

[mrfunji]

I think all of us here need to take the next logical step. How about a GMI Members vs. Toyota, citing Toyota's are too hyped and we seek reimbursement for the emotional damage caused by Toyota's ever-increasing marketshare.

Hey...it could happen

[jd4548]

More news once again that the Explorer is junk. However, you can't always avoid rollovers and deadly accidents. People today are willing to sue for just about anything. Too bad for Ford.

[Kar Krazie]

Sounds like the Explorer is scoring high points with some customers, NOT! They sure have a lot of cases on their hands this year. I hope they lose them all!

[gmsickofan]

This is like that case of the driver who fell asleep in his eeeeevil SUV, not wearing a seatbelt, and was decapitated or something. I wonder if the award would have been this large if it had been a glorious Toyota Prius?

[princecharmless]

Originally Posted by neotoxin1

The plaintiffs are right, I wish ford would have invested more money into stronger glass and decided to save money by not installing seatbelts. That way tragedies like these can be avoided

i totally agree...lol

[MelvinJ]

Originally Posted by Kar Krazie

Sounds like the Explorer is scoring high points with some customers, NOT! They sure have a lot of cases on their hands this year. I hope they lose them all!

Nope, because this kind of "could have done more" logic can (and has) been applied to pretty much every automaker, and all that award money comes ultimately from it's customers.

[MelvinJ]

""Ford's body-engineering office did a cost evaluation, and their own documents showed this would cost only $6 to $10 a car," Mikal Watts of the Watts Law Firm of Corpus Christi, Texas, the lawyer for the women's families, told Bloomberg News."

"Ford argued to the jury that the driver's speeding caused the one-vehicle accident and that the deaths were caused by the women's failure to wear seat belts. The four occupants of the vehicle -- all high school seniors -- were returning to San Antonio from several graduation parties. They were all unbelted and ejected during the accident, Ford said. "

And how the hell much would it have cost for them to buckle their seatbelts???? About $0, and these people still wouldn't invest even that in their own lives. Why should Ford invest $6-$10 if they won't chip in 3 seconds of effort?

Are there really that many brain-dead people in this country that you can stock almost every jury with them in these big product liability suits?

[roushcrew]

Got killed when "ejected" from the vehicle? Yeah lets not wear seatbelts and if we get "ejected" and killed, sue the automaker!!!