Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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If you thought Sacramento’s new curbs on big-screen TVs were bad, brace yourself. David Shepardson, Detroit News:
California’s latest requirement for the auto industry — advanced window glazing to keep vehicles cooler — could prevent drivers from making phone calls, listening to satellite radio or using garage door openers.
More: Carter Wood/ShopFloor, Jon Fleischman/Flash Report. And Aaron Renn at Urbanophile has a broader look at California’s decline.
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Readers might remember the Mraz case, where a driver was run over by his own truck because he failed to engage the parking brake, and a jury nevertheless awarded $55 million. (March 8 and March 21, 2007.)
The Chrysler bankruptcy threw a wrench into the appellate process. Given the number of unsecured (and secured!) creditors who were taking a haircut on what Chrysler owed them, and the weakness of the case, one would expect the claim to be extinguished. But Chrysler unilaterally (and almost certainly politically) decided not to extinguish product-liability lawsuits against it, and the Mraz case has settled for $24 million. (Amanda Bronstad, “Chrysler bankruptcy judge approves $24 million personal injury settlement”, National Law Journal, Sep. 25). Of course, the likely $8-$10 million attorneys’ fee in this case is being funded by taxpayers’ bailout money.
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Robert Kahn, Courthouse News on a Maryland case: “A family demands $10 million from Honda, claiming a side window shattered and injured them when a tornado picked up their Honda Odyssey. …They say Honda should use laminated glass, as it does for windshields,” instead of tempered glass. For why the choice between laminated and conventional glass in side windows exposes automakers to a choice between one type of lawsuit and another, see our May 13, 2005 post. The plaintiff husband is also suing his wife, who was driving the vehicle. More: Fark.
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Doubts about its timing, chaotic implementation and environmental benefits — and that’s aside from the high cost of subsidizing trade-ins many of which would soon have occurred anyway.
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…and should be held legally responsible for his shooting a cop at a 2:30 a.m. traffic stop in Brooklyn, according to a suit filed by the cop’s surviving family. [Staten Island Advance via TortsProf]
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Nearly all the outcry about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 has focused on its absurd and impracticable rules for products intended for kids twelve and under, such as apparel, books, toys, used items and so forth. But the law is actually a lot broader than that, imposing many new requirements and burdens that apply to wider classes of consumer products, whether or not intended for use by kids. Here’s the story of one miscellaneous provision causing major headaches for makers and distributors of specialty chemicals used in car care and maintenance (Paul Laurenza, “Product safety law imposes major burdens on auto suppliers”, Aftermarket Business, Apr. 3, via ShopFloor)
“A Portland attorney who blamed his German luxury car for a speeding ticket was told he was responsible, not the automaker,” reports AP/OregonLive: C. Akin Blitz brought in a PowerPoint presentation and the testimony of a mechanic to bolster his argument “that he had no idea his BMW 535xi was going 76 mph in a 55 mph zone because of its handling characteristics”, but Clatsop County Circuit Judge Philip Nelson disagreed and fined Blitz $182.
P.S.: Ken at Popehat: “Legal realism note: as a rule, you will not find traffic court judges sympathetic to the defense ‘Your honor, I am not guilty because my German luxury car is too awesome.”
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We’ve been following Buell-Wilson v. Ford for some time, including the U.S. Supreme Court remand. Curt Cutting’s blog has the latest in two April posts here and here. Cal Biz Lit also has good commentary.
I expressed skepticism this summer that the Exxon Shipping v. Baker decision was a positive sign for the Court’s punitive damages jurisprudence. After the replay of Philip Morris v. Williams and, now, the Court’s denial of certiorari in DaimlerChrysler v. Flax this week, I can say I was right.
As readers of Overlawyered know, the Tennessee Supreme Court reinstated $13.3 million of punitive damages over a good-faith dispute over a van’s seat back design (in an accident caused by a drunk driver), giving no credit to the fact that the design in question was safer than federal safety standards, or to Exxon Shipping’s suggestion that punitive damages greater than a 1:1 ratio were possibly constitutionally inappropriate where compensatory damages were substantial and the defendant’s actions were not intentional or done for profit. As I described the case back then:
In 2001, Louis Stockell, driving his pickup at 70 mph, twice the speed limit, rear-ended a Chrysler minivan. Physics being what they are, the front passenger seat in the van collapsed backwards and the passenger’s head struck and fatally injured 8-month old Joshua Flax. The rest of the family walked away from the horrific accident. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jim Butler argued that Chrysler, which already designed its seats above federal standards, should be punished for not making the seats stronger — never mind that a stronger and stiffer seat would result in more injuries from other kinds of crashes because it wouldn’t absorb any energy from the crash. (Rear-end collisions are responsible for only 3% of auto fatalities.) Apparently car companies are expected to anticipate which type of crash a particular vehicle will encounter, and design accordingly.
(h/t Cutting)
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19-year-old Sidney Odom happily went along when 20-year-old Travis Kirby and 18-year-old Riley Strickland asked “Who wants to go to the Beacon?”—a bar in Terry, Mississippi. A long night of drinking and driving came to an end at about 3 am when Kirby’s Camaro hit a tree at about 90 mph. As none of the three were wearing seatbelts, all were ejected from the vehicle. Kirby, whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit at 0.25%, died at the scene; the other two were injured.
Since we’re talking about the case, you can guess that the three blamed everyone except the underage drunk drivers: in this case, the car seller, the tire installer, and the tire manufacturer, Goodyear Tires. The car seller settled for about half a million dollars; a Copiah County jury found the other defendants liable for an additional $2.1 million. Goodyear appealed, complaining about various prejudicial statements made by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, such as introducing evidence from other lawsuits about other types of tires, but the Mississippi state appellate court affirmed. (Holbrook Mohr, “Miss. court agrees tire, not alcohol caused crash”, AP/Washington Post, Apr. 22; Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Kirby (Miss. App. 2009)).
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Michael Arrington, TechCrunch: “The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. …dark colors just don’t reflect well, so they are likely out.” (via Coyote Blog).
P.S. Ian Douglas of the Telegraph (h/t Walker in comments) says reaction to the rules has been exaggerated and that so long as a “cool paint” with infrared reflectivity is used, California drivers can have any color they want, even if it’s black. And yet more from Janet Neilson, Western Standard.
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Steve Chapman on the Detroit Three automaker bailout (via Alkon).
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A legal hazard you might not have expected.
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emoticon, businessman asking royalties [BBC h/t @bodhi1 @mediadonis]
Point of Law Volokh