After less than a day of deliberations, jurors rejected a lawsuit claiming that General Motors was responsible for the death of former Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas, who was speeding on ice without a seat belt at the time of his fatal crash four years ago (see Nov. 28, 2000). The ruling was a setback to attorney Michael Piuze (Jun. 19, 2001, Sept. 24, 2001, Oct. 4-6, 2002), who argued the case for the plaintiffs. (“GM Wins In Derrick Thomas Wrongful Death Trial”, KansasCityChannel.com, Aug. 17).

The family, as we noted in our earlier item on the case, had also sued local ambulance service Emergency Providers Inc. and Liberty Hospital, both of which tried to save Thomas after the accident. The ambulance company settled, as did a Chevrolet dealership. “There was no dispute that the Suburban’s roof was far stronger than federal standards, but the family contended that those standards were insufficient and needed to be changed. … Almost whispering to the jury, [Piuze] asked them for from $75 million to more than $100 million in damages, saying he did not want to put an upper limit on it.” We’ll bet he didn’t (Joe Lambe, San Jose Mercury News, Aug. 17).

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