Chrysler’s tempid response to a recall of approximately 1.6 million Jeep Liberty and Grand Cherokee models over rear end-impact fire hazards depends on the protection a trailer hitch would provide for the gas tank. According to the executive in charge of engineering, these tow hitches were not designed to protect the gas tank.
 
In addition, safety groups say that before letting Chrysler use such an unusual remedy, crash tests should be commissioned by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NITSA) -which has no safety standard detailing the construction and strength of trailer hitches, part of what automakers refer to as a tow package.
 
Francois J. Castaing, Chrysler’s vice president for engineering in 1988-96 said in a 2001 deposition “The skid plate underneath only protects the tank from stones from the ground.” Mr. Castaing made these remarks during a 2008 wrongful death case filed against Chrysler in the Superior Court of New Jersey. The Plaintiff, Thomas Kline, brought this action as a consequence of his wife Susan’s death after her 1996 Grand Cherokee was rear-ended and erupted into flames in February 2007.
 
The Center for Auto Safety has confirmed research of 6 deaths in 115 crashes that involved fires resulting from rear-impact collisions or rollovers. The Center has also reported that a fuel-filler hose on the Grand Cherokee is also prone to pulling loose, something that the safety agency did not investigate.
 
When asked how agency officials could initially demand that the 1999-2004 Grand Cherokees be recalled and then decide a few weeks later that a recall was not needed, the agency issued a statement saying it had concluded there was a “lower rate of post-crash fires” in newer models, But it declined to provide the basis for it’s reversal.
 
Using a trailer hitch to reduce a rear impact is an unusual concept, said Pam O’Toole Trusdale, executive director of the National Association of the Trailer Manufacturers. “It is not something we would have ever considered” she commented when interviewed.
 
Even Chrysler said that there were limits to what a trailer hitch can do in a report to the safety agency. Chrysler said the hitch cannot and will not mitigate the risk of high-energy rear collisions and it would only incrementally improve the performance in certain types of low-speed impacts.
 
However, trailer hitches are not a remedy because they can puncture the gas tank, just like what happened in 2006 when a 1993 Grand Cherokee’s hitch punctured the gas tank, leading to a fire. The child strapped into her infant seat survived the impact but died of injuries from the fire.
 
The option offered by Chrysler is a Band-Aid that is inadequate at best if their vehicles are involved in moderate to severe rear-end collisions. Vehicle safety should require the maximum, not minimum, to provide vehicle occupants the best safety against suffering severe burns or worse.
 
The key element of “Crashworthiness” is whether the automobile company designed or manufactured their vehicle to withstand the effects of real world situations. No vehicle should have their gas tank rupture at low impact speeds, or lose control and rollover when the driver has to make a sudden ‘J” turn or evasive maneuver to avoid hitting a child who ran out into the street or someone’s dog got loose. Door locks are not supposed to pop open in a collision, and roofs should be able to withstand a significant amount of force to avoid crushing into the head of the driver. Cars are supposed to be designed not to contribute to causing the occupants greater injury when an auto collision occurs. The same reasoning that resulted in the great safety innovations such as the padded dash, three point seat belt system and airbags should still be strictly followed. If you or a family member has suffered an injury, which could have been avoided if your vehicle had been designed properly, please call Gary Sernaker to discuss your case and determine if a ‘Crashworthiness’ case should be pursued.
 
Photo Credits: inajeep, Flickr.

Personal responsibility is the mantra that the business community chants when confronted with legal action taken when their employees or safety practices fall below what is generally accepted and result in serious injury to an individual or their children. The worst example of trying to avoid responsibility for their actions is by requiring users of particular services to sign waivers or releases of potential liablility for whatever harm results. Assumption of the risk is the basis for insisting that adults and even children sign away whatever rights they might have based upon latent or hidden dangers not assumed by anyone that result often in catestrophic injuries.
 
Certain risks are assumed by individuals who want to engage in various types of activities: river rafting, snow or water skiing, surfing, bungee jumping, etc. These activities all involve obvious risks of potential injury no matter how safe you might try to be. However, there are a number of other activities that hide behind the legal doctrine of assumption of the risk to ignore taking reasonable precautions to avoid users from becoming exposed to serious injury. One of the worst examples are the trampoline parks, which advertise that their patented interconnected design is safer than conventional trampolines. However, the risks of doing forward and backward flips have been warned against by the Federal Safety Commission and the Insurance Industry for over thirty years. These types of companies that have their employees demonstrating and encouraging their customers to engage in these manuevers, no matter how well trained they might be, can lead to horrible spinal cord injuries leaving the person paralyzed with a broken neck. This type of
 
Gross negligence is not protected by any release or waiver. However, the public acceptance and willingness to sign away potential protections provided by California Law does erode the obligation of companies engaged in these type of services from trying to provide as much safety and well trained employees as possible. This would significantly minimize these inherenent risks recognized assciated with these types of activities. The lapses in safety often compound these risks increasing their probabilility of occurring. No parent should have to worry that their child will be subjected to serious harm because the company providing the activity they want to engage in just didn’t care about overall safety.
 
I have been fighting against this type of indifference for many years. I have represented clients who have suffer serious injuries including partial and complete quadriplegia. The defendants try to avoid their responsibilty by presenting the release signed by the injured party warning them of the harm they might be exposed to. It’s clear that if anyone really thought that terrible injuries or death probably would result they wouldn’t engage in the activity. If you have experienced serious harm from this type of circumstance please contact Gary Sernaker to discuss your rights and options.

GM recently has announced a big recall of almost 200,000 cars, including Chevrolets, Buicks, GMCs, Isuzus and Saabs-due to an electrical glitch which might cause the vehicle to catch fire. That’s a heck of a glitch. The recall includes Chevy’s Trailblazer EXT, GMC Envoy XL and 2006-2007 Trailblazers, Envoys, Buick Raniers, Saab 9-7x and Isuzu Ascender. GM confirms at least six fires and one injury due to this defect. It recently recalled 249,000 similiar modes for the same so called glitch which confirmed 58 reported fires and 11 injuries.
 
Following GM’s announcement, Chrysler had agreed to supposedly recall a portion of the 2.7 milliion Jeeps, prone to dangerous fires in rear-end collisions. This critical defect prompted Chrysler to back down from their defiant refusal to agree to the action initiated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,(NITSA). However, the proposed repair, is really a band-aid approach to a more deadly design defect. It includes only installing low-cost trailer hitches, a much cheaper fix than providing fire retardant suits for the occupants of these vehicles or actually fixing the real cause of why these fires result from the most common type of vehicle collision. The entire design concept of Crashworthiness is to anticipate the real world uses that these vehicles will be confronting to make sure that the collison will not enhance or increase the risk of harm to the occupants of the vehicles that are damaged.
 
Chrysler has also only agreed to recall 1.56 million vehicles, exposing the 1.2 million other vehicle owners to hope that their vehicles won’t be rearended while their families are being transported. They may believe that maybe the vehicle owners that are not included will just buy fire extinguishers or be extra careful so they won’t get rearended.
 
The cause of these fires appears to be a defective fuel tank design prone to gasoline leaks which can result in fire after a collision.
 
50 deaths have been reported.
 
Rather than agree to the Government’s request for a recall, Chrysler has really only agreed to a limited combination of a voluntary recall and a customer service action. The trailer hitches they are intending to install on those vehicles without them supposedly have the added benefit if absorbing force when the vehicle is rearended. It probably makes more sense to use these hitches to tow a trailer with pillows or other absorbent material to provide real protection from this type of catastrophic defect.
 
Unfortunately, Chrysler and the Government were involved in a high-stakes game of chicken and the NITSA blinked, Chrysler may come out of this to be the big winner. The existing owners of these potential time bombs may end up to be the tragic users. There legal rights to sue have already been extingushed by Chrysler’s Bankruptcy and Government Bailout. Now their continued safety and protection has been seriously undermined.
 
The actions of auto defect attorneys, such as myself and many others, have held automotive manufactures accountable for their actions when vehicles have been placed on the road with serious design and manufacturing defects. When a car, truck, SUV, or other type of vehicle fails to handle or respond while being operated as it was intended and anticipated to be driven the results can be terrible. These vehicles are used to transport precious cargo, families, who rely on the safety of the vehicles they are in not to experience serious problems then involved in forseeable accident. Seat belts, air bags and other saftey measures don’t offer any protection if your gas tank explodes.
 
Photo Credits: inajeep, Flickr.

I was recently in federal court involving a products liability case. The Judge, during the preceedings, inquired regarding whether or not I actually had the defective product either safeguarded or in my possession. I advised him that I had never pursued a products case when I did not have either possession or access to the actual product that caused injury to my client. He advised me that unfortunately, many other attorneys handling these types of cases could not make the same assurances. The Judge lamented about the number of products cases brought before him where the claimant’s attorney did not preserve the defective product for inspection or production during pre-trial evalutions or at the trial itself.
 
It is critical that when a person suffers a serious injury from a product that was either defective in the way it was manufactured or designed that it is preserved. There are many times that a product fails apparently due to a design flaw actually also failed from a manufacturing defect. That can be an important distinction when the defendant manufacturer claims that they have sold over million of the identical products without any reported defect inflicting injury. There may be times when the product itself is destroyed due to the malfunction which results in inflicting serious injuries. However, it’s criitcal that the remnants from the product, be collected and preserved. Photographs are not enough. They can be important but are no substitute for the product itself, or what’s left of it, after an injury occurs.
 
In some of the products cases I’ve handled, I have had to scour wrecking yards for the remnants of defective vehicles to retrieve them before they were disposed of or recycled in order to have the necessary expert evaluations that can be made by comparing the defective vehicles with exemplars. The subtly of the actual defect may not be readily apparent until the damaged vehicle is compared to the same year and model of the vehicle in question. This was how a rear seat pan defect for a client who suffered a broken neck was discovered. Measurements and comparisons helped to identify that the rear seat in the damaged vehicle had moved enough, from inadequate welding, to propell the passeger forward during a very low speed rear end collision. Whether it’s a chair that collapses, or a piece of gym equipment that falls apart or becomes dismantled, or any other type of product that malfunctions inflicting serious injury preserving the actual product will often make the difference between successfully pursing this type of case or losing.
 
Photo Credit: Walter Ezell, Flickr

In June 2009, the “New Chrysler” emerged from Bankruptcy Court and was able to eliminate any responsibility for product defect claims based on either unsafe design or manufacture, with regard to any vehicle sold prior to the date that they emerged from the protection of the Bankruptcy Court.
 
Not only did this decision wipe out any hope of recovery for those individuals with pending injury claims against Chrysler but it has also shielded Chrysler from suits filed by anyone injured in a future accident which at the time involved approximately 31,000,000 Chrysler vehicles on the road.
 
At the time that the Federal Government assisted in the bailout of Chrysler and General Motors, it did not make any provision to provide any protection for consumers with pending claims but most importantly failed to protect those individuals who might be affected as a result of undisclosed defects which would result in future injury.
 
At the time of the automotive bailout, involving both Chrysler and General Motors, it was estimated about 74,000,000 General Motors vehicles were on the road.  Federal statistics show that approximately 5,900 people were killed in crashes involving Chrysler vehicles in 2007.  The concern by knowledgeable skeptics, at the time that Chrysler obtained their bankruptcy relief was how it would affect the future claims for undiscovered vehicle defects.
 
Evidently, everyone’s worse fears have been realized with the discovery of the approximately 2.7 million vehicles who are currently at risk of a fuel tank fire in a rear-end collision.   Chrysler has refused the Federal Government’s request to recall the Jeep Grand Cherokees that were manufactured from 1993-2004 and the Jeep Liberty that were manufactured from 2002-2007.
 
Unfortunately, the government’s failure to have properly protected the American consumers, in connection with the massive automotive bailout that was funded through taxpayer monies, also abandoned the consumer protection.
 
Although Chrysler has refitted the Grand Cherokee’s in 2005, as well as the 2007 Liberty, it estimates that retrofitting the older Jeeps, with repositioned tanks, would be both time consuming and costs over $240,000,000.

 
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an optimistic solution to this extremely significant safety problem.  Chrysler previously refused to accept theNational Highway Traffic Safety Agency requests that it recall 91,000 Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Cirrus vehicles to rectify an alleged seatbelt defect.  Although NITHSA has successfully sued Chrysler in Federal Court, in 1998, that decision was reversed on appeal.   Chrysler’s lawyer in that case, on appeal, was John Roberts, who is now the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
 
Unfortunately, this is just one other indication, of how large companies are able to obtain maximum influence to avoid responsibility for their failure to have complied with the appropriate government safety guidelines to protect the American consumer.
 
I have been holding automotive manufacturers accountable for the safety defects contained in the vehicles, which have inflicted significant and usually catastrophic injuries to my clients.  I don’t believe that there is any more serious safety defect than the lack of fuel tank integrity.
 
As we all know, after the Fuel Pinto case, when Ford neglected to have a $10.00 part which would have significantly protected against fuel tank rupture from rear-end collision, these defects produced horrendous and catastrophic injuries on the occupants of the vehicles that failed.
 
Unfortunately, in this instance, the legal rights and remedies that were available to hold Chrysler accountable have been erased by the blank check that they were given during the governmental rollback that rescued their company from oblivion.
 
Hopefully, Chrysler will reconsider its position, in light of the significant relief that they have received, in order to eventually comply with the government’s request to rectify this extremely serious defect.
 
Photo Credits: Motorclan, Flickr.