“Blogs appear far more influential in the Democratic than the Republican party. With the waning influence of the labor movement — the blogs and the trial lawyers are picking up the slack as influential institutions.” — Marshall Wittman, Bull Moose Blog, Nov. 28.
Archive for December, 2005
Deep pocket files: Motor Coach Industries I-35 bus crash trial
A Temple church group chartered a bus from Central Texas Trails Inc. on Valentine’s Day 2003 to attend a Christian music concert in Dallas. It was raining when charter-bus driver Johnny Cummings approached an Interstate 35 traffic jam too fast, lost control of his tour bus, crossed a median, swerved into oncoming traffic, and collided with an SUV, killing five of his passengers. Cummings and the charter company declared bankruptcy, so 19 injured bus passengers and survivors sued Motor Coach Industries, the bus manufacturer, for its failure to include three-point seatbelts on its 1996-manufactured bus. The bus met federal safety standards, NHTSA has found that seatbelts on tour buses do not “enhance overall occupant protection,” and no tour buses sold in the US have seatbelts, but a McLennan County jury awarded $17.5 million anyway. Judge Jim Meyer allowed Houston attorney Thomas Brown to argue that a jury vote for the plaintiffs was a vote for the cause of safety. A second trial with a second set of plaintiffs from the bus accident remains to be scheduled. (Matt Joyce, “Jury awards bus crash victims $17.5 million”, Waco Tribune-Herald, Nov. 4).
Nanotech’s legal risks
They’re anything but infinitesimal, or so conferees were told recently:
“However,” Monica warns, “no industry — including the nanotechnology industry — is beyond the reach of American trial lawyers. Concerns about possible health and safety hazards posed by nanomaterials are being raised among labor unions and environmentalists; trial lawyers cannot be far behind. Some have even begun to compare nanotechnology to asbestos, a material plagued by $70 billion in litigation over the past three decades.”
Lawyer John C. Monica Jr. of Porter Wright Morris & Arthur in Cleveland, along with colleagues, wrote the paper, which was entitled “Preparing for Future Health Litigation: The Application of Product Liability Law to Nanotechnology.” (Keay Davidson, “Big troubles may lurk in super-tiny tech”, San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 31)(more tech law coverage)(& welcome InstaPundit readers).