California Injury Blog

Toyota is recalling 90,189 Highlander and Highlander hybrids because apparently the third row passenger seatbelts are defective when it comes to securing a child restraint system. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), the flaw in the restraint systems in these sport utility vehicles could result in injuries to children in the case of an auto accident.

So if you own one of these SUVs, please watch the mail for your recall notice. Toyota is promising to fix the problem for free. According to an article in the watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com, the seat belt webbing in the third row of the recalled Highlanders is not properly secured by the automatic retractor. This makes the seatbelt webbing prone to spooling out during normal driving.

How does the loose belt affect the stability of a child restraint? It could cause major injuries or even death in a high-speed crash or rollover accident. Such a defective seatbelt will do nothing to protect children from injuries during auto accidents. Toyota dealers will install a newer, better-designed seatbelt free of charge when the recall gets underway. If you own one of these vehicles and would like to know more about the recall, please call Toyota Motor Co. at 800-331-4331 or NHTSA at 800-327-4236.

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A jury in Texas awarded $84 million to a man who was injured when a U-Haul rental truck he rented ran him over because the parking brake failed. According to a Bloomberg News report, Talmadge Waldrip, 74, parked the truck on a slight incline and the parking brake failed. In his lawsuit against U-Haul, Waldrip alleged that U-Haul failed to maintain its vehicles properly and should be held liable for his injuries.

According to the article, Waldrip’s pelvis was crushed in the 2006 accident leaving him unable to walk and with no bowel control. Waldrip also alleged in the lawsuit that the truck with 234,000 miles on it was poorly maintained. U-Haul officials have said they will certainly appeal the verdict and that they find the damages awarded “outrageous.” A company spokesperson told the news service: “The final verdict is another example of abuse of the legal system against corporate citizens in America.”

A Dallas court found U-Haul negligent and awarded Waldrip a total of $84.25 million, a majority (about $63 million) in punitive damages. The verdict is reportedly the 11th largest jury award this year so far.

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A California judge, earlier this week, approved a class action settlement for about 800,000 owners of the Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles, which were said to have lost value following an extensive tire recall stemming from concerns over potential rollover crashes. According to a Reuters news report, Judge David Alba approved the settlement in Sacramento on the Explorer class action lawsuit, which includes vehicles purchased or leased between 1991 and 2001 in the states of California, Illinois, Texas and Connecticut.

The lawsuit by Explorer owners, who by the way have every right to be dissatisfied and upset, did not make any personal injury or damage claims, but alleged a loss of financial value for the Explorers. As per the settlement, Ford Motor Co. has agreed to issue discount certificates valid for one year worth $500 toward the purchase or lease of the new Explorer or $300 toward the purchase or lease of any other new Ford, Mercury or Lincoln vehicle.

Ford is also going to pay out $25 million to the attorneys representing the class members. Of course, company officials continue to say that the case was “without merit” and that somehow, they proved it in court. As personal injury attorneys who have represented numerous victims of Ford Explorer and Expedition rollover crashes, we know that Ford’s statements are without merit.

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The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a new proposal on the table that requires all vehicles to have stronger roofs to protect occupants in rollover accidents. That’s a good thing, because 10,000 Americans die each year in rollover crashes alone and thousands more suffer major injuries that leave them disabled for life.

Well, this requirement could mean saving thousands of lives because the strength of a vehicle’s roof could make the difference between life and death in a rollover accident. The NHTSA currently conducts roof crush tests by pressing down on a plate placed against the edge of a vehicle’s roof. The roof must withstand a force equivalent to 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle, up to a limit of 5,000 pounds without the plate moving more than 5 inches, according to this article in Consumer Reports.

We’ve already said in previous blogs that this standard is still not adequate. Especially flawed are the tests conducted in determining this roof strength. The way they perform these tests are very different from the way accidents happen in real life. But a huge concern, from our point of view, is that a part of this proposal will limit consumer lawsuits against auto makers.

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Two men were killed in a multi-vehicle freeway accident that started in the northbound lanes of the 15 Freeway in Rancho Cucamonga. The accident was triggered when the left rear tire tread on a Honda sedan separated, according to a news report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

The Honda with the blown tire driven by a 41-year-old Long Beach man, then crossed the northbound lanes and struck a Ford E-250 15-passenger van, which in turn spun out, crashed through the guard rail and into a pickup truck. Both the driver of the pickup, 27-year-old Jesus P. Velasco of Pomona, and the driver of the 15-passenger van, Viorel Taru, 49, of Loma Linda, died in this horrible auto accident. The Ford van and the pickup truck were involved in a head-on collision, officials told the Daily Bulletin. Two other vehicles were also involved in a collision.

Continue reading "2 Killed In a Chain Reaction Crash Caused By Defective Tire" »

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A defective 2001 Ford Expedition parked in a homeowner’s carport may have been the cause of a fire in Madison County, Ohio, which killed a woman and her two children, according to an in-depth investigative report in consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com. According to Peter Romans, the man who tragically lost his wife and children in this fire, the fire started in his Ford sport utility vehicle, which was parked in the car port.

The 2001 Ford Expedition, whish is suspected for sparking off this lethal fire, was included in Ford Motor Company’s recall of 9.6 million vehicles said to have been equipped with a defective cruise control switch. These faulty switches could cause a vehicle fire at any time, according to a report by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The Ford recall, which started nearly three years ago, is still dragging on because of its magnitude and failure on the part of regulators to keep up with it, the article states.

In fact, Consumeraffairs.com has been reporting on this problem for years now, with numerous Web site viewers complaining about their “flaming Fords,” which erupted into flames without warning. Many were able to escape without major injuries, but this family in Ohio wasn’t as fortunate. The vehicles recalled because of the defective cruise control switches spanned 21 vehicle models between the years 1993 and 2003. The article states that about 5 million vehicles have been repaired so far, which leaves 5 million more with the faulty switches, vehicles that are nothing but time bombs waiting to go off at any time.

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Ford Motor Co. is recalling more than 100,000 of its 2008 F-Series trucks because of a flaw in the driver’s seat, consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com reports. Ford officials are saying that the weld connecting the driver’s front seat back with a bracket can crack. Because of this faulty weld, the vehicles do not meet with federal rules for seatback strength, the article said.

The recalls cover F-250 through F-550 Super Duty trucks. There are more than 87,000 of the trucks here in the United States and about 14,000 in Canada with these defective seatbacks. Ford says no injuries have been reported yet because of the defective product. Owners will be notified of the defect later in March.

Seatback defects are serious problems and can cause major injuries or death even in low-speed, rear-end collisions. The mechanics of it are important to understand. When a vehicle is hit from behind, the force of the impact propels the vehicle forward and the occupants are thrown backwards.

We recently filed a defective seatback lawsuit against the Nissan Motor Co. where our client was thrown back after the driver’s seat broke and suffered severe head injuries. The seatback should be able to keep the vehicle’s occupants safe by protecting them from ejection and from striking parts of the vehicle’s interior or ramming into other passengers. It should be able to keep the occupants in an upright position.

We have also settled successfully with Ford in the past over seatback defect issues. In many of its vehicles, Ford denied its fault saying that there was nothing wrong with their seatbacks. That denial has cost a lot of lives. We’re glad that at least this time around, they admitted the fault and are working toward recalling and repairing the vehicles.

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Last week, we filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Nissan Motor Company alleging that the auto maker knowingly designed and manufactured the 2000 Nissan Frontier with defective and unsafe seats and seat backs. Our client, Jaklin Mikhal Romine suffered major injuries after the Frontier’s driver’s seat broke during a rear-end traffic collision in Pasadena, rendering her a paraplegic.

Jaklin was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Corson Street and Lake Avenue when another vehicle hit her truck from behind. The impact of the collision pushed her vehicle into the one in front of her. During the accident, her driver’s seat broke, sent her hurtling backward toward the rear seat cushions. Her seat back collapsed and her head was pushed into the rear passenger compartment causing severe head, neck and spinal injuries.

Continue reading "Bisnar Chase Files Seat Back Defect Lawsuit Against Nissan Motor Company" »

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Ford Motor Company is recalling more than 400,000 model year 2005 to 2008 Mustangs because the passenger-side airbags may cause neck injuries to small women or large children riding in the seat without being buckled up. According to an article on consumer watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com, federal officials informed Ford last year of this problem after conducting a lengthy investigation. Mustang owners are asked to contact Ford at 1-866-436-7332 or the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration at 1-888-327-4236.

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Today, we settled a California teenager’s case against General Motors for an undisclosed amount in a product liability lawsuit involving defective quality of glass on the GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle. Our client, Michael (last name omitted), only 16 at the time of the incident lost his left eye after the tempered glass on the passenger side window of the sport utility vehicle shattered inward striking him in the face during a traffic collision. As a part of the settlement terms, General Motors required that the parties keep the amount of the settlement confidential.

The accident occurred July 7, 2006 when the Yukon where Michael was a passenger collided with a Lexus at the intersection of Golden Springs Road and Diamond Bar Boulevard in Diamond Bar. Michael was seated behind the front seat passenger and was properly restrained.

We alleged in the lawsuit that GM, as a cost-cutting measure, used tempered glass in its vehicle everywhere except in the windshield where stronger laminated glass is required as a safety measure. While this move possibly helped the auto maker dig itself out of a financial crunch back in the 1960s, it seriously compromised the safety of consumers. Tempered glass easily shatters upon impact causing people to get ejected on to the roadway resulting in major injuries. This type of glass could also pierce its occupants causing the type of injury that this teenager suffered.

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A product liability lawsuit involving defective seatbelts in Mitsubishi vehicles is going to trial in a Florida court tomorrow against Japanese auto maker, Mitsubishi Motors. According to this article, the lawsuit says the seatbelt in a 2001 Montero sport utility vehicle, designed to introduce 10 inches of slack during an auto accident, led to the death of Scott Laliberte, a 25-year-old college student, in a Sept. 24 accident.

Laliberte was actually a passenger in that SUV and wearing his seatbelt. But when the crash occurred, he was ejected from the vehicle through the rear window. His head was crushed against the vehicle and ground when the SUV went out of control and rolled over, the lawsuit states. While his seatbelt was designed to give slack, the driver’s side seatbelt was not made that way. The driver, in this incident, got away with barely a scratch, the article said.

Mitsubishi Motors has consistently been accused of systematically covering up their product defects without issuing recalls in spite of complaints involving numerous accidents, injuries and fatalities. In fact, just this week, the auto maker recalled 7,340 Endeavor SUVs because the right side lower seatbelt anchor may break off during a severe crash.

Continue reading "Mitsubishi Faces Product Liability Lawsuit in Florida, SUVs Recalled For Defective Seatbelts" »

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Federal auto safety officials have yet again put off updating a controversial standard for vehicle roof strength, according to a news report in the watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com. This one has been a long time coming not only because the existing standard is more than 35 years old, but because of the lives that are lost every year just in rollover crashes, which adds up to more than 10,000 fatalities a year.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is now asking for more information from auto manufacturers, safety advocates and the public about the proposed new standards. Auto safety advocates such as Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen are asking that auto makers be mandated to do dynamic roof crush testing – which means the rollover testing must be done when the vehicles are moving. But auto makers are saying they want to keep the static test – which is performed when the vehicles are not moving. How many rollover accidents occur when vehicles are not moving? Hopefully, federal officials have asked themselves that question.

Tens of thousands of lives have been lost in passenger car and sport utility vehicle rollover crashes in the United States even as this tug-of-war has been going on for decades. SUV makers such as Ford and General Motors are prime culprits in this because they have been fighting a stronger standard all along. They don’t want to do the dynamic testing or put heavier or stronger roofs because they cost more and push up the price of the vehicles.

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Federal investigators are looking into reports of front passenger seat airbag failures in about 330,000 BMW cars and SUV’s, the consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com reports. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/01/nhtsa_bmw_airbags.html In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defect Investigation is reporting that the BMW vehicles’ front airbags may be defective rendering them ineffective during a crash.

The models that are part of this investigation include 2004 to 2006 BMW 5 and 7 series sedans, Z4 convertibles and X3 SUVs, as well as 2006 BMW 3 and 6 series cars and X5 SUVs. So far, federal safety regulators have received 729 reports about this malfunction from owner and 23,739 warranty claims for the faulty airbags in these vehicles, the Web site reports.

Readers from all over the country have reported to Consumeraffairs.com about the problem. One person reported that his 2003 BMW 352i got broadsided by a red light runner at 45 mph and the air bags still did not deploy. Another reader says that the air bags didn’t even work in a frontal collision which occurred at a speed of 30 mph. Yet another man reported that his BMW hit a concrete light pole and caused $10,000 in damages to his car and the airbags did not deploy. That reader also complained that BMW is not taking responsibility for the vehicle defects.

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A Georgia jury has awarded $3 million in compensatory damages against Ford Motor Co. in the case of a 76-year-old woman who died after the seat back of her car broke in a rear-end accident. Mary Reese of Augusta, Ga. was driving a Ford Tempo when she was struck from behind by a big truck that was carrying gravel, the article said.

Her car plummeted down a steep embankment. Reese was taken to the hospital with severe spinal and head injuries. She died 23 days later, the article reported. Reese’s adult children filed the product liability lawsuit against Ford alleging that the seatback failure in the Ford Tempo caused their mother’s lethal injuries. The jury awarded compensatory damages, but not punitive damages in this case.

And what do Ford officials have to say about the verdict? They’re going to appeal the $3-million award, according to a spokeswoman. Ford maintained during the trial that the seats were “made to protect front-seat passengers by yielding and absorbing the energy of a rear-end crash.” The company maintained that the intensity and severity of the crash caused Reese’s death, not the car seat.

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Ford Motor Co. is recalling almost 1.2 million vans, sport utility vehicles and heavy-duty pickup trucks because of a faulty engine sensor that could cause sudden stalling and cause drivers to lose control of their vehicles, according to a news report in the watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com.

The automaker reported to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) that these defective vehicles could stall without a warning very likely causing a crash, the Web site article said. It also cited an NHTSA report that says that the Ford vehicles’ camshaft position sensor located on the engine could function intermittently and lead to an engine stall and potential auto accident. The sensor in question is an electrical component that helps control the fuel flow into the engine.

This most recent recall reportedly includes vehicles built between 1997 and 2003. Among the recalled vehicles are Ford’s E-Series full-size van, the Excursion SUV and the F-450 Super Duty pickup truck. This hardly comes as a surprise to our personal injury law firm, which has been conducting independent and expensive crash tests on Ford vehicles for many years now. At Bisnar Chase, we’ve tested Explorers, Expeditions and Excursions and found that these vehicles have dangerous defects.

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A defective seat mounting or restraint system is now suspected to be the cause of death of Gavin Fletcher, a popular Times Colonist sports editor, who was ejected from his Nissan Infiniti along with his driver’s seat when the Nissan crashed last year according to an article in the Times Colonist.

The Times Colonist quotes British Columbia coroner Rose Stanton, as saying their investigation has centered on mechanical issues and " … that the cause of death may be partially as a result of a mechanical failure in Mr. Fletcher’s car." The report goes on to say that Stanton is waiting on a response from experts who have been analyzing Fletcher’s Nissan Infiniti.

Reports of the accident investigation indicate that Fletcher was wearing his seatbelt and traveling the speed limit at the time of the accident. He apparently lost control of his vehicle, slid backwards striking a rock wall and that he and the driver's seat were violently ejected through the rear windshield. Fletcher died instantly.

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Ford Motor Co. earlier this month recalled 3.6 million passenger cars, trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans because of a defective cruise control switch, according to an Associated Press news report. Problems with the cruise control switch have been reported over the years now and there have been numerous reports of vehicle fires because of the faulty switches as well.

In January 2005, Ford recalled 6 million vehicles because of the engine fires linked to the cruise control systems in their trucks, SUVs and cars. The latest recall covers 16 brands of cars, sport utility vehicles and trucks from model years 1992 to 2004. The models include the Ford Ranger, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis, Lincoln Town Car, Lincoln Mark VIII, Ford Taurus SHO, Mercury Capri, Ford Explorer, Mercury Mountaineer, Ford Explorer Sport and Explorer Sport Trac, Ford E-150-350, Ford E-450, Ford Bronco, Ford F-150 Lightning, some models of F-Series trucks and Ford F53 Motor.

This recall brings the total number of vehicles recalled for this problem to 10.5 million since 1999. According to Ford, none of the vehicles involved in this recall have experienced an abnormal number of fires. How many reports did they get of these fires? According to a Ford spokesman, they don’t have an exact number. That’s interesting. Almost 11 million vehicles recalled and they’re not documenting the complaints? I don’t buy that for a second.

Continue reading "Watch Out for These Flaming Fords – 3.6 Million Recalled" »

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Looks like three tragedies flowed from an August 6, 2005 fire truck accident. A 1987 Spartan fire truck driven by Riverside firefighter Michael Arizaga hydroplaned off Interstate 10 near Highway 60 resulting in the death of Riverside firefighter Chris Kanton. Other firefighters in the fire truck were injured as well, according to the Press Enterprise.

The first tragedy was the loss of the life of firefighter Chris Kanton. Chris was only 23-years old. He lived in Temecula, California.

The second tragedy was that of Michael Arizaga who was charged by the Riverside District Attorney’s office with manslaughter. The DA’s office claimed that it was Arizaga’s negligence that caused Kanton’s death in the fire truck accident. The California Highway Patrol report states that the truck was speeding in suddenly rainy conditions, going 45 mph and that neither Arizaga nor Kanton were wearing seatbelts when the accident occurred, according to the Press Enterprise. Arizaga was responsible for his crew wearing seat belts according to the CHP.

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