Ford hit with $28 million verdict in rollover suit
 

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.../54-zavala.inc

(or http://tinyurl.com/44pgq)

Read the whole story...what do you make of it?

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Dave Stone wrote:

> http://tinyurl.com/44pgq

I find myself conflicted over this verdict. My first and strongest
reaction:

I applaud whenever idiots eject themselves from the gene pool, and that's
what happened here. The driver was drunk and speeding, the passengers were
dumb enough to have gotten into a drunk-driven car and dumb enough not to
wear their seat belts, so their deaths were their own stupid fault. It's
bad precedent to make an automaker pay for deaths that result from the
vehicle occupants failing to use their seatbelts.

On the other hand, Ford has a long and shameful history of shoddy,
least-possible-cost safety engineering for the North American market, and
they have proven to be very resistant to changing this policy. Perhaps if
enough verdicts like this are made to stick, their beancounters will
arrive at the radical notion that it makes good business sense to build
the damn things properly in the first place.

DS

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 18:40:15 -0500, Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> I find myself conflicted over this verdict. My first and strongest
> reaction:
>
> I applaud whenever idiots eject themselves from the gene pool, and that's
> what happened here. The driver was drunk and speeding, the passengers were
> dumb enough to have gotten into a drunk-driven car and dumb enough not to
> wear their seat belts, so their deaths were their own stupid fault. It's
> bad precedent to make an automaker pay for deaths that result from the
> vehicle occupants failing to use their seatbelts.
>
> On the other hand, Ford has a long and shameful history of shoddy,
> least-possible-cost safety engineering for the North American market, and
> they have proven to be very resistant to changing this policy. Perhaps if
> enough verdicts like this are made to stick, their beancounters will
> arrive at the radical notion that it makes good business sense to build
> the damn things properly in the first place.

Well said.

I think what should happen is that punitive damages should be paid to
charitable organizations instead of to the plaintiff. Thus the companies
would still have to pay, the plaintiffs would have less incentive for
frivolous lawsuits and the charitable organizations could use the money.

Also it should be illegal for lawyers to reap a percentage of a settlement
like this, they should only be entitled to compensation on a hourly basis
(their hourly rates are generous enough), which further would cut down on
the number of frivolous lawsuits.

Furthermore they should create a new type of verdict, where the plaintiff
is found at fault and gets nothing but the manufacturer still has to pay
punitive damages to the charitable organization if there was a defect in
his product.

Chris

"C.H." > wrote in
:


>
> I think what should happen is that punitive damages should be paid to
> charitable organizations instead of to the plaintiff. Thus the
> companies would still have to pay, the plaintiffs would have less
> incentive for frivolous lawsuits and the charitable organizations
> could use the money.



Perhaps pay to hospital emergency room funds?

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

In article ch.edu>, Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> On the other hand, Ford has a long and shameful history of shoddy,
> least-possible-cost safety engineering for the North American market, and
> they have proven to be very resistant to changing this policy. Perhaps if
> enough verdicts like this are made to stick, their beancounters will
> arrive at the radical notion that it makes good business sense to build
> the damn things properly in the first place.

Which automakers have laminated side glass in their north american market
product line?

Unless you can show Ford is the exception here, I am going to have to
discount this as another one of your 'any time there is even a tinest
reason to bash ford' oppertunist rants.

My guess is few if any models come with laminated side glass in the US
market.

Ford sucks, but they were not specificly at fault in this accident. If
you aren't buckled up and you are hurt, well, what do they expect? No car
maker can make a perfectly safe car if people won't do the most basic safety
measure of all- buckling up. And if you drink and drive, again, you are
going to get yourself or somebody else killed.

I would have thought this has something to do with the Firestone tire
problems. That, IMO, would have been something worth suing over, because
they were compromising tire life to get better "smooth" handling. But not
every rollover is Ford's fault.

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:52:28 -0500, Dave Stone <n=> wrote:

>http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.../54-zavala.inc
>
>(or http://tinyurl.com/44pgq)
>
>Read the whole story...what do you make of it?

There is not enough info to determine if Ford bears any responsibly at
all. Based on the tiny amount of info relative to the allegations
against ford I see no basis to believe Ford is in any way responsible,
not even 9% much less 90%. There certainly seems to be plenty of
reasons that a mistrial should have been declared but again, there's
really not enough detail to know for sure.

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Magnulus wrote:

> I would have thought this has something to do with the Firestone tire
> problems. That, IMO, would have been something worth suing over,
> because they were compromising tire life to get better "smooth"
> handling.

....which they were allowed to do by lax, backwards US "safety" regulations
that essentially say "Sure, fine, build whatever, we'll only sit up and
notice if people start dying".

The rest-of-world ECE version of the Explorer had no rollover problems.

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Scott en Aztl=E1n wrote:

> >On the other hand, Ford has a long and shameful history of shoddy,
> >least-possible-cost safety engineering for the North American market,
> >and they have proven to be very resistant to changing this policy.
> >Perhaps if enough verdicts like this are made to stick, their
> >beancounters will arrive at the radical notion that it makes good
> >business sense to build the damn things properly in the first place.

> This process will occur much faster if people stopped buying Ford cars,
> as I have.

Yeah, of course, but people are stupid and buy all kinds of garbage,
including Ford cars.

In article ich.edu>, Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> ...which they were allowed to do by lax, backwards US "safety" regulations
> that essentially say "Sure, fine, build whatever, we'll only sit up and
> notice if people start dying".

So, what nations require side glass to be laminated like windshields?

> The rest-of-world ECE version of the Explorer had no rollover problems.

Even when driven by drunks who let their vehicle's tire pressure drop to
12psi and neglect it the way people in the USA do?

Also, did export versions have to pass the consumer reports test? The
reason behind the lower tire pressure recommendation in the first place.
(sliding at lower speed was passing while lifting a wheel at a higher
speed was failure)

Once again, all I am seeing is opertunistic bashing here.