Missouri Injury Lawyer Blog

As a Missouri car crash attorney, I have been carefully following the news about Toyota and other carmakers that have recalled their vehicles for serious safety defects. Given the lawsuits mounting against Toyota, I was dismayed to see recent articles reporting that rental car companies are not required to fix recalled safety defects in their cars before renting them out. Despite being ordered to pay $15 million in a recent lawsuit involving two deaths, Enterprise Rent-A-Car has said that it may not immediately fix cars whose recalls it does not regard as pressing.

This isn't the first time Enterprise has been in the news for cutting corners on customer safety. Last year, Enterprise was discovered to have ordered about 66,000 Chevy Impalas without their standard side airbags in order to save money. Then the company advertised the cars for sale as if they did have the airbags, misleading customers who expected that the cars had all their standard safety features. The more recent defective rental car issue gained attention from a tragic case involving the deaths of two sisters. Jacqueline Houck, 20, and her sister, Raechel, 24, rented a Chrysler PT Cruiser from a California Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 2004 so that they could visit family near Los Angeles. The PT Cruiser had been recalled a month before the crash because of a broken power steering hose that posed a fire hazard. While the Houck sisters were driving, a fire broke out under the hood. They lost control of the car, hit a semi-trailer and died.

Consumer advocates including the Houck sisters' mother, Carol Houck, have petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to forbid rental car companies from continuing to rent out defective cars. They have said it's deceptive to rent out a car that customers should be able to assume is safe, when the company knows that there are recalls associated with the car. If someone chooses not to take their personal car in to have a recalled defect repaired right away, they are aware of the car's defect and have chosen to drive it anyway. But a defective rental car is a different situation. The customer rents a car expecting that they're paying for the use of a safe, functional vehicle, but only the rental car company knows whether this is really true.

In my view as a St. Louis auto accident attorney, it is disturbing that Enterprise does not see every safety recall as “pressing.” If the defect was serious enough to merit a recall, it should be serious enough to fix before renting the car to a customer who has no reason to think there is anything wrong with it. It's easy to see why rental car companies don't want to immediately fix cars when they learn about recalls: money. If they have to pull some of their cars out of circulation when a recall is announced, those cars will not be bringing in rental fees while they're in the shop. From the company's perspective, it's easier and cheaper to pull the cars out of circulation when it's convenient for the company. But this way of looking at it puts consumer and driver safety at the bottom of the list, which is the opposite of where it belongs. It shouldn't be up to victims and their families alone to deal with the financial and health consequences of accidents that negligent car rental companies failed to prevent.

Continue reading "Rental Car Companies Put Unwitting Customers’ Lives at Risk With Defective Cars" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Negligence , Product Liability

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As a St. Louis auto accident attorney, I am very concerned about design flaws that make automobiles more susceptible to crashing. That's why a recent story in the New York Times about a Japanese inventor who argues that having separate gas and brake pedals right next to each other in cars is simply dangerous got my attention. The inventor has come up with a new design that combines both pedals into one, preventing crashes caused by "pedal confusion," when a driver mistakenly hits the accelerator instead of the brake.

Toyota and other car makers that have been faced with lawsuits for “sticky” gas pedals have blamed driver error for the unintended acceleration. Masuyuki Naruse, 74, an inventor who owns a small factory in southwest Japan, has designed a new pedal to prevent this problem. Drivers would press one part of the pedal with a sideways motion to accelerate, and press down like on a traditional brake pedal to stop. Pushing down on the brake automatically releases the accelerator. “We have a natural tendency to stomp down when we panic," said Naruse. "The automakers call it driver error. But what if their design’s all wrong?” Another inventor, Sven Gustafsson, came up with a similar idea, and a prototype of his pedal is being tested by regulators in Sweden. Naruse's design is being used in about 130 cars in Japan.

(Image from the New York Times)

The single-pedal design offers an important opportunity for automakers to invest in a new safety technology. Yet, even though it has been around for two decades and clearly offers an improvement for public safety, automakers have not adopted it. Naruse said that Toyota engineers tested a prototype of his pedal in 2000, but they didn't like the design. In 2009 alone, 37 deaths and 9500 injuries were attributed to accidents caused by pedal confusion in Japan, according to the Tokyo-based Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis. In the United States, auto safety experts say there have probably been tens of thousands of crashes because of pedal confusion, most notably a 2003 accident in Santa Monica, Calif., that killed 10 people when a driver accelerated into an outdoor market.

Even though drivers would have to learn how to drive smoothly with the new pedal, in my view as a Missouri car crash attorney, the prospect of preventing accidents by changing the car's design seems worth the investment. Retrofitting cars with the pedal is not prohibitively expensive. Naruse said it costs about 100,000 yen, or $1,156, and it does not require major changes to the car's existing braking or acceleration systems.

Continue reading "Inventors Design New Gas and Brake Pedal to Avoid ‘Pedal Confusion’ Crashes" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability , Traffic Safety

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The bad news just keeps coming for Toyota. According to the Washington Post, a federal grand jury has subpoenaed information from Toyota for an investigation into concerns about vehicle safety defects. As a Missouri car wreck attorney, I've been following the investigations into Toyota's runaway acceleration problems. Now the focus has widened to include defects with steering relay rods. Just as with the sticky acceleration pedals, Toyota is facing accusations that it kept quiet about the steering relay rod problems rather than informing consumers. While Toyota undoubtedly doesn't welcome these developments, it's good that these problems are coming to light so that Toyota and other automakers can learn that there are consequences to putting public safety at risk by allowing defective vehicles on the roads.

Several Toyota trucks and SUVs -- certain 1989 to 1998 4Runners, T100 pickups and Toyota pickups -- are implicated in the faulty steering relay rods investigation. The defective steering relay rods, which connect the steering wheel to the wheels, reportedly break and leave the drivers without control of their vehicles, making this a very serious safety problem. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is apparently treating this as a criminal investigation. The investigation is looking into whether Toyota shrugged off complaints of steering relay rods breaking. Toyota had issued recalls first in only Japan, claiming that the problem would affect only Japanese drivers and not Americans because the tight maneuvering required in Japan would stress the steering mechanisms more. However, at least 15 crashes, 3 deaths, and 7 injuries have occurred in connection with the problem in the U.S., according to the NHTSA. Toyota issued a U.S. recall in 2005, but only a small number of the affected vehicles were fixed. In 2007, Michael Levi Stewart, an Idaho teenager, was killed after the steering relay rod snapped in his 1991 Toyota pickup, causing it to veer off the road and roll over.

As a St. Louis car crash lawyer, I hope that the NHTSA's toughening stance on Toyota's numerous recalls will deter other automakers from failing to warn consumers about safety issues in a timely manner. Accidents like Michael Levi Stewart's leave families and communities with tremendous emotional losses, especially when they happen through no fault of the victim's. Automakers do not have a right to withhold information about serious safety problems until they feel that the right time has come to disclose it. All manufacturers are legally required to tell the public about any unavoidable safety problems with their products. Automakers who place their company's financial and public relations concerns ahead of public safety can be held responsible for any harm that their products do. Their failure to warn the public is a form of negligence, or carelessness, and victims should not and do not have to bear the consequences of the company's negligence all on their own.

Continue reading "Toyota Faces Criminal Investigation Into Failure to Warn About Steering Rod Problem" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability , Traffic Safety

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In February, I wrote about the lawsuits that Toyota will increasingly face regarding the unintended acceleration of some of its cars, which has been blamed for 93 deaths. Toyota's handling of recalls related to the unintended acceleration problem have led to some serious public- and government relations problems, since the company appears to have sat on evidence about these problems for three years before doing anything about them. The New York Times recently reported that Toyota has admitted that some of the reported incidents of sudden acceleration really were related to problems with floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals, rather than only due to driver error, as the carmaker had previously claimed. From my perspective as a Missouri car crash attorney, Toyota's admission means that consumers and their advocates should continue to insist on complete answers to questions about whether their vehicles are safe.

Toyota's acknowledgement that the floor mat and sticking pedal problems are real came in the context of its investigation of about 2,000 reports of sudden acceleration. The company did not say how many of these incidents it believes were caused by floor mats or sticking pedals, but its spokesman, Mike Michels, said more of the incidents were related to floor mats than to pedals. Michels said that none of the vehicles with sticking pedals were involved in crashes, and he was unable to say how many crashes were related to the floor mats. Toyota maintains that in almost all crashes related to unintended acceleration, the problem was that the driver mistakenly pressed the accelerator rather than the brake.

Michels said there was no evidence of problems with the electronic throttle control system, despite the research of Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert that demonstrated such problems. However, Toyota may be avoiding looking closely at its electronic throttle system because it’s afraid of what it might find. A Massachusetts consulting firm, Safety Research and Strategies, is taking a broader view of the unintended acceleration problems. Its president, Sean Kane, said, “You can’t ignore the fact that when they move to an electronic throttle control, you basically see a fourfold increase in complaints.” Toyota's investigation has focused on information gathered by vehicles' onboard data recorders, which are activated by crashes violent enough to cause the airbag to deploy. But Kane pointed out that these recorders rely on “the same sensing system that is unable to detect the failure to begin with,” so they couldn't prove that a car didn't accelerate suddenly on its own. And Toyota itself has argued in court cases that its onboard data recorders should not be used as reliable sources of evidence.

As a southern Illinois auto accident attorney, I find the suggestion that Toyota may be purposely avoiding looking at its electronic throttle control very troubling. Between Professor Gilbert's account of Toyota's possible attempts to quash his research into its electronics, and Toyota's own description of the onboard data recorders as unreliable, it seems clear that those who have been harmed by automobiles with runaway acceleration problems should keep pushing for real answers. They should also discuss with a St. Louis car crash lawyer how they might pursue compensation for any harm they have suffered as a result of Toyota's failure to warn consumers or investigate the cause of defects in their vehicles.

Continue reading "Toyota Admits Validity of Sudden Acceleration Claims Involving Pedals and Floor Mats" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability

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As a southern Illinois auto accident attorney, I was very interested in a recent story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about Toyota's alleged attempts to intimidate a Southern Illinois University automotive technology professor and suppress his research into Toyota's runaway acceleration problems. Toyota has donated cars as well as money to SIU, and the company may have used its standing to pressure SIU administrators to stop Professor David Gilbert from publicizing his worrisome findings. Knowing how many people have been hurt and how many more are afraid that their cars might suddenly accelerate, these allegations would be unfortunate, if proven, both for the safety of the driving public and for Toyota’s own financial security.

In January, Gilbert discovered that he could cause runaway acceleration in a Toyota Avalon by manipulating its electronics. When he did so, the car's computer did not switch over to a fail-safe mode that would allow the brake to override the gas, as it should have. Gilbert went to Toyota with his findings, but after hearing what he had to say, they never got back to him. Gilbert felt he couldn’t stay silent, the article said, so he took his findings to the government and media. In response, Toyota sent some attorneys to meet with Gilbert and university officials about his testimony before Congress, a meeting that Gilbert said "was meant to maybe intimidate me." Toyota also assembled its own group of experts to refute Gilbert's findings, saying that the conditions under which he produced the runaway acceleration could never happen on an actual road. SIU's then-chancellor Sam Goldman also received an email from a man who said he was an SIU alumnus and a Toyota Motor Sales employee, complaining that Gilbert should be fired for making what he called false accusations about Toyota, and reminding him of his and Toyota's financial and in-kind contributions to the university. University officials apparently did their best to assuage Toyota and maintain the relationship.

In my view as a St. Louis car crash lawyer, it would be much better for the company to work with someone who could discover solutions to the runaway acceleration problem than to try to cover it up. If the allegations are proven, Toyota's alleged treatment of Gilbert and his work could actually hurt the company’s public relations and its financial bottom line. Evidence that Toyota passed up an opportunity to work on a potential fix for a serious problem could make the company look bad in all the lawsuits it's already facing over runaway acceleration. Not only is there evidence that Toyota had received over 2,000 complaints over the last decade and knew about the pedal problem three years ago, but Gilbert's story suggests that Toyota was more interested in denying any problem than fixing it. Unfortunately for Toyota, its customers may have a strong basis for a legal claim that it failed to warn drivers about the problem in a timely manner, in addition to a possible claim about a design defect. And if the automaker is found liable, it could be forced to pay its customers billions of dollars because of the seriousness of the claims and the huge number of affected vehicles.

Continue reading "Professor Alleges Toyota Tried to Quash His Research Into Runaway Acceleration" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability , Traffic Safety

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As the dust settles in the media over Toyota's recent trouble with "sticky" gas pedals, Chrysler and GM have now announced recalls of millions of cars. The more than 700,000 recalled Chrysler vehicles in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and other countries have potential problems that could be very dangerous, including doors prone to catching fire, brakes that might not work and sticky accelerators. GM's 1.5 million recalled vehicles have a heated windshield washer system that can catch fire, a system that has already been recalled once in the last two years. As a St. Louis product liability lawyer, I'm glad that these automakers are acting more swiftly than Toyota did recently to handle safety problems with their vehicles. But these recalls are still worrisome: If the same problems keep showing up in different companies' vehicles, how can consumers choose a vehicle that's safe?

The recall of 25,334 2007 Chrysler Jeep Compass and Dodge Caliber vehicles comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated five complaints of sticky gas pedals. The gas pedal assemblies were built by the same company -- CTS Corp. of Elkhart, Indiana -- that produced the 2.3 million pedal assemblies recalled by Toyota in late January. In the complaints about the pedals, drivers said that the pedals did not return to the idle position after drivers released them, and four drivers found parts from the assembly lying on the floor of the driver's side of the vehicle. The NHTSA discovered that the pedals' bearing housing was too large, and Chrysler said that this problem only existed in cars built between March 7 and May 19, 2006.

Chrysler told the NHTSA that it did not think the pedal problem was a safety defect since the vehicles have brake-override software. But in the wake of Toyota's gas pedal problems, the NHTSA and two congressional panels continue to investigate whether the electronic system that controls the pedals is to blame for the defects, rather than the pedals themselves or the loose floor mats that had been blamed by Toyota and, more recently, Ford.

Along with faulty accelerators found in three different companies' cars, vehicles from at least two different companies may pose fire risks as well. GM recalled 1.5 million Buicks, Cadillacs, Hummers, Chevrolets and Saturns because of an unfixable problem with a heated windshield washer system that had caused at least five fires. GM plans to disable the heating mechanism and give each owner $100 as compensation for the loss of the feature and, Center for Auto Safety executive director Clarence Ditlow suggests, to derail any potential class-action lawsuits over the problem. Chrysler is recalling Chrysler Town and Country minivans and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans for their own fire risks from short circuits in the electrical system operating the sliding door latch.

After Toyota's heavily publicized problems, many consumers thought they were being smart by choosing American cars that didn't have the same sticky pedal problems that Toyotas did. Now it seems harder to tell which cars are safe. A few months ago, I wrote about the ways in which liability lawsuits forced auto makers to make safer cars. As a Missouri automotive defect attorney, I help drivers who expected that their cars would be safe, but who got hurt because the cars had defects that they couldn't have known about. Drivers who get hurt because of flaws in their vehicle's design can work with an experienced product liability attorney to determine whether the automaker is liable. If so, drivers can sue the auto maker to pay for their medical costs, lost past and future wages, and pain and suffering. It's important to speak with a lawyer right away if you're in this situation, as there are time limits on lawsuits, and if you wait too long, you may not be able to sue.

Continue reading "Recalls for Sticky Gas Pedals and Fire Risks Spread to Multiple Automakers" »

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A recent news story from Kansas City about a frightening accident at an elementary school caught my attention s a Missouri personal injury lawyer. A six-year-old boy was nearly smothered in an inflatable obstacle course at a school carnival. The Kansas City Star reports that he remained hospitalized the day after the incident occurred. This story is important because it incident reminds us that young children need careful supervision at all times: unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among all children over age one in the United States. I hope that this child will recover quickly and fully, and that the school and the company that provided the inflatable play area think carefully about making sure children stay safe while they're at a school event.

Fun Services of Kansas City provided an inflatable obstacle course and other play equipment for the school carnival at Lakewood Elementary School on May 13. Police learned that two children approached a Fun Services employee around 8:30 p.m. to inform him that the boy was stuck between two parts of the obstacle course. Meanwhile, the mother of the boy had approached a Fun Services employee to say that two older children were playing inappropriately on the obstacle course, and that she had disciplined them herself. It was then that the employee told her that a child was not breathing, and she found out that it was her own son. A Fun Services employee pulled the boy out and Clay County sheriff's officials who were at the carnival performed CPR. The boy did begin to breathe on his own, but on the ambulance ride to Children's Mercy Hospital, his condition grew worse and he had to be ventilated when he arrived at the hospital. A letter sent to parents the next day from school principal Suzanne Baker said that his condition had improved, but he remained hospitalized.

This situation would be frightening for any parent, but other details described in the news report give me pause too, as a St. Louis personal injury attorney. I'm wondering whether anyone was specifically asked to supervise the children in the inflatable play areas. School carnivals can be very chaotic and noisy, making it all the more important that responsible adults plan out in advance who will make certain that the children stay safe. The district undoubtedly had its own safety policies before this incident, and now, it has instituted a new policy requiring that this type of play equipment be inspected and pre-approved by the central office. Fun Services said that their employees always followed safety regulations and maintained their equipment so that it was in safe condition. But the fact that it was up to the two children to report that the boy was stuck in the inflatable obstacle course raises questions about whether the employees and the school district really did follow all safety procedures that they reasonably should have.

Continue reading "Six-Year-Old Boy Nearly Smothers in Inflatable Play Area at School Carnival" »

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Posted In: Premises Liability , Product Liability

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As a St. Louis automotive product liability lawyer, I was interested in a recent article in the Los Angeles Times that said lawsuits have spurred some of the most important automotive safety innovations that exist. Many of us are thinking about auto safety lawsuits, given the recent Toyota recalls. But lawsuits against automakers are not new at all. As far back as 1916, a New York man sued Buick when a defective rear wheel on his car caused an accident that lacerated his eye and broke his wrist. In the 1916 case, the New York Court of Appeals established an important legal precedent by ruling that automakers have a "duty of care" to ensure that their products are safe. Their award to the plaintiff showed that negligence would be punished.

Since then, legal and auto safety experts agree, lawsuits over automakers' duty of care have pushed car companies to develop better and better safety technologies. For example, designs for steering columns and dashboards had to be altered so that they would absorb impact. This was also true for other design elements that could cause injury during crashes, like gear shifts that impaled drivers or shattered glass that lacerated occupants. All of these improvements came after a 1968 ruling that held an automaker responsible for injuries suffered in a collision -- even if the design features in question did not actually cause the crash. That is, this ruling allowed injured motorists to sue over features that worsened an accident, creating injuries that might otherwise never have existed.

Consumers who sued automakers over their unsafe vehicles or parts have not just recovered financial damages. They also helped to send automakers a message that they could not ignore product safety and get away with it. An especially important lawsuit, Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., concerned Ford's liability in the Ford Pinto's gas tank's propensity to explode rear-end collisions. Evidence showed that Ford was aware that the gas tanks were defective and prone to explosion, and that repair of the problem would have cost about $11 per car. Yet Ford declined to recall the Pinto. In light of this evidence, a California appeals court ordered Ford to pay victims of these explosions $125 million in punitive damages, later reduced to $3.5 million. As a Missouri automotive defect attorney, I am glad that the courts provide this avenue for holding negligent companies responsible for the damage they do.

The article goes on to cite many more examples of automakers' reluctance to address safety problems with their products over the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first with Toyota's current problems. As a southern Illinois defective car parts attorney, I’m disappointed that some companies continue to place convenience and higher profits over customers' health and lives. History has shown that this problem will not go away on its own. Drivers who have been hurt because of flaws in their vehicle's design can work with an experienced products liability attorney to determine whether the automaker is liable.

Continue reading "History of Automotive Safety Shows Lawsuits Play Important Regulatory Role" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability

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Recalls and image problems continue for Toyota, which has issued two more recalls since I wrote last week about the first unintended-acceleration defect lawsuits. This week, the automaker announced that it would recall third-generation Prius and 2010 Lexus HS 250h hybrids because of a problem with their braking software. That’s 155,000 vehicles in the United States and 437,000 worldwide. In papers filed with federal regulators, Toyota said the vehicles’ electronic anti-lock braking system doesn’t work as well when driven over rough or slippery roads. This can increase the time necessary to stop the vehicle, the Detroit News reported Feb. 9. It will also open the company up to further liability from angry customers and Missouri auto accident lawyers like me.

Significantly, the article said Toyota knew about the braking problem at least a month ago, but didn’t tell customers or regulators about it. The company has already readied a software patch for the Prius and is working on another for the HS 250h; both will be installed as part of the recall. However, the brake recall is just one of Toyota’s new problems. The automaker has also recalled 7,300 2010 Camrys because of a possible problem with a power steering hose. The hose is placed in a way that may wear a hole in brake tubes, decreasing the brakes’ effectiveness. This recall is not a result of complaints, but stems from an observation by an employee in Kentucky. However, the federal government may investigate power steering problems in 2009 and 2010 Corollas, after receiving more than 80 complaints from drivers.

As a St. Louis car wreck attorney, I am particularly disturbed to read that Toyota knew about the brake problem and even worked on fixing it before revealing it. The desire to have a solution on hand is understandable, but failing to disclose the problem takes away drivers’ options for dealing with it. Some drivers undoubtedly won’t mind, but others may have preferred to park the car for the time it took Toyota to prepare the software patch. That could be particularly true because the braking problem is worse in winter. As with the floor mat and brake pedal recalls, Toyota’s behavior leaves observers like me wondering whether it was as forthcoming as possible and acted as early as possible to save lives.

Continue reading "Toyota Issues New Recalls for Hybrid Brakes and Camry Power Steering Problem" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability

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Last week, I wrote here about Toyota’s recall of millions of vehicles that may accelerate suddenly and without the driver’s intervention. This is a major story for drivers and auto dealers, but also for Missouri car wreck attorneys like me, because we may end up handling lawsuits related to the recall and its defect. Now, it looks like that prediction is already coming true. According to a Feb. 2 article from Reuters, Toyota faces at least 10 lawsuits filed since November of 2009, all of which allege that the automaker sold a defective product, failed to warn drivers about the problem or both. They all seek class-action status, which means they’d combine claims from all Toyota owners affected by the defect. Depending on the circumstances, this could include tens of millions of drivers in the United States alone.

Toyota has taken a beating in the press for handing the unintended acceleration problem poorly. It has issued two recalls, blaming the problem first on floor mats and then on accelerator pedals, sending mixed messages. Furthermore, evidence has emerged that the automaker had received at least 2,000 complaints over the past decade, and knew about the pedal problem nearly three years ago. Legal experts in the Reuters article said this could form the basis of a claim that Toyota failed to warn drivers about the problem in a timely manner, in addition to a possible claim about a design defect. If Toyota is found liable in this type of claim, they said, it could owe its customers billions of dollars because of the seriousness of the claims and the sheer number of affected vehicles.

Reuters reported that four of the claims alone were filed on Jan. 29, and given that at least 19 people have died because of unintended acceleration, more are almost certainly coming. As a St. Louis auto accident lawyer, I think it’s only a matter of time before we hear about claims filed locally. There’s evidence that, at the very least, Toyota was slow to respond to the problem. At worst, the automaker could face charges that it actively tried to cover up the problem by blaming it on easily fixed mechanical parts rather than its expensive and complicated computerized accelerator system. You may remember the movie Fight Club, in which a major automaker decided whether to recall products based on whether it would cost more to fix the problem or settle lawsuits from families of people who died. This was based on a real memo put out by Ford in 1968. If we find that Toyota used similar math to calculate the value of human lives, it could take such a beating in court that it may never recover financially.

Continue reading "Toyota Faces First Lawsuits Connected to Unintended Acceleration Recall" »

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Posted In: Auto Accidents , Product Liability

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Toyota announced news this week that made a major impression on Missouri car crash lawyers like me, as well as drivers and auto dealers around the U.S. As the Columbia Daily Tribune reported Jan. 27, Toyota has asked local auto dealers around North America to stop selling the eight vehicle models involved in its latest recall. That recall, of 2.3 million vehicles, addresses reports of sudden and unintentional acceleration in late-model Toyotas. The automaker originally blamed the problem on floor mats that were installed incorrectly and recalled 4.3 million vehicles to replace the mats. In the newest recall, it says flaws in the accelerator pedal cause the pedal to “stick” open.

During the original recall, some safety experts expressed doubts that floor mats were the cause of the unintended acceleration. Rather, they suggested that the problem could lie with the “drive by wire” system, which uses a computer rather than a lever to relate pressure on the accelerator pedal to the engine. Toyota denies this, and the newest recall doesn’t have to do with the computer system. Rather, the automaker says parts of the pedal can wear down and catch, opening the throttle. Toyota asked drivers with recalled vehicles to continue driving unless they feel that the accelerator pedal is slow to move or moves poorly. However, all of those drivers will be eligible for repair or replacement pedals when Toyota devises a solution, which is expected to be soon. A full list of the models involved in both recalls is available from the Los Angeles Times, and a Toyota press release about the recall is available here.

As a southern Illinois auto accident lawyer, I am pleased that Toyota is taking action on this problem. However, it’s disturbing to realize that by initiating the second recall, Toyota is reversing its previous stance that accelerator pedals are not the problem. If the automaker was wrong about that -- unintentionally or not -- what’s to stop it from being wrong about the driver-by-wire system as well? That is an important question, because the drive-by-wire system is installed in far more Toyota (and Lexus) vehicles than just the eight involved in the current recall. If Toyota is intentionally hiding important safety information just because it hurts sales, it’s putting millions of North Americans at risk of death or life-changing disabilities. Not only is this ethically unsound, but it could put the automaker on the wrong side of multiple defective auto part lawsuits.

Continue reading "Toyota Motor Company Stops Selling Certain Models as Part of Safety Recall" »

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As a Missouri personal injury attorney, I wrote a while back about a recall of a major brand of strollers. Parents got a new issue to worry about Jan. 19 when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of 635,000 cribs because of strangulation and suffocation hazards. An article from CNNMoney.com said Dorel Asia SRL is recalling the drop-side cribs because the hardware holding up the drop side can detach, creating holes that can entrap and strangle a child. Babies can also get caught in the slats of the crib if a slat is damaged, the article said, posing another strangulation risk. This applies to stationary cribs as well as drop-side models.

Dorel Asia and the CPSC have received 31 reports altogether of the sides detaching from the crib. Those incidents caused six entrapments and three injuries as well as the death of a six-month-old boy in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In that case, the drop-side hardware broke and the parents tried to fix it themselves. The company and regulators have also received 36 reports of broken slats, which led to cuts and bruises for seven children and entrapment for two. The company stressed that the death was unusual, but safety officials are asking parents to stop using the cribs right away and request a repair kit at the company’s Web site or by calling 1-866-762-2304. The recalled cribs were sold at Wal-Mart, Sears and K-Mart for $120 to $700, depending on the model.

As a St. Louis personal injury lawyer, I hope parents notice this recall and take quick action. Like all manufacturers, baby product manufacturers are legally obligated to make sure their products are safe before they reach the market. If they fail, they are legally liable for any injuries that result. This is particularly important with baby products, because babies are literally helpless. Defective products affect people of every age, but because babies can’t call for help, product defects can kill them before parents even notice something is wrong. Replacing or repairing a crib may be expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the possibility of losing a child.

Continue reading "Federal Government Announces Recall of Cribs After Iowa Child Dies" »

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With holiday gift-giving just behind us, I was pleased as a Missouri product liability attorney to see that the federal government is still concerned about toy safety. According to a Dec. 29 article from the Associated Press, toy maker RC2 Corp. has agreed to pay a $1.25 million civil fine for allegedly knowingly importing and selling Thomas & Friends toys with lead paint. Tests showed the toys, made in China and intended for young children, had lead levels above those set by federal law. The company and its Learning Curve Brands Inc. subsidiary admitted no wrongdoing. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency that handles safety of toys and other products, has provisionally agreed to accept the settlement.

Lead paint on toys is a problem because lead can poison developing children who ingest or inhale it over time. Lead interferes with the body’s absorption of minerals necessary for health and development, such as iron, calcium and zinc. In children with chronic lead poisoning, this leads to irreversible damage to the central nervous system, causing learning and developmental disabilities, aggression, hyperactivity, emotional control problems, loss of short-term memory and more. These effects are thought to be irreversible in children, which is why public health efforts focus strongly on prevention. RC2 recalled 1.7 million units of the Thomas & Friends toys for lead paint in 2007. The CPSC’s fine was so high because it believes the company knew its toys didn’t meet standards but sold them anyway.

As a southern Illinois defective product lawyer, I hope the CPSC is wrong -- but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was right. You may recall that 2007 and 2008 saw multiple recalls of toys with lead paint, many of them made in China. At that time, media reports explained that Chinese-made products are cheaper, but Chinese safety standards are relaxed and easily broken. This allows U.S. companies to make their products overseas for very cheap, but their products may not meet basic safety standards in our country. An unscrupulous company might be happy to make that trade-off if profit is its only goal. Unfortunately, the series of lead recalls showed that too many companies either did not pay attention to this issue or cynically chose to place profits over the safety of small children.

Continue reading "Illinois Manufacturer Agrees to Pay $1.25 Million Fine for Selling Toys With Lead Paint" »

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With holiday gift-giving just behind us, I was pleased as a Missouri product liability attorney to see that the federal government is still concerned about toy safety. According to a Dec. 29 article from the Associated Press, toy maker RC2 Corp. has agreed to pay a $1.25 million civil fine for allegedly knowingly importing and selling Thomas & Friends toys with lead paint. Tests showed the toys, made in China and intended for young children, had lead levels above those set by federal law. The company and its Learning Curve Brands Inc. subsidiary admitted no wrongdoing. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency that handles safety of toys and other products, has provisionally agreed to accept the settlement.

Lead paint on toys is a problem because lead can poison developing children who ingest or inhale it over time. Lead interferes with the body’s absorption of minerals necessary for health and development, such as iron, calcium and zinc. In children with chronic lead poisoning, this leads to irreversible damage to the central nervous system, causing learning and developmental disabilities, aggression, hyperactivity, emotional control problems, loss of short-term memory and more. These effects are thought to be irreversible in children, which is why public health efforts focus strongly on prevention. RC2 recalled 1.7 million units of the Thomas & Friends toys for lead paint in 2007. The CPSC’s fine was so high because it believes the company knew its toys didn’t meet standards but sold them anyway.

As a southern Illinois defective product lawyer, I hope the CPSC is wrong -- but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was right. You may recall that 2007 and 2008 saw multiple recalls of toys with lead paint, many of them made in China. At that time, media reports explained that Chinese-made products are cheaper, but Chinese safety standards are relaxed and easily broken. This allows U.S. companies to make their products overseas for very cheap, but their products may not meet basic safety standards in our country. An unscrupulous company might be happy to make that trade-off if profit is its only goal. Unfortunately, the series of lead recalls showed that too many companies either did not pay attention to this issue or cynically chose to place profits over the safety of small children.

Continue reading "Illinois Manufacturer Agrees to Pay $1.25 Million Fine for Selling Toys With Lead Paint" »

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As a St. Louis miniblinds injury attorney, I was disappointed to see that a child’s death has prompted yet another recall of a brand of window blinds. According to a Nov. 30 article in USA Today, two-year-old Thapelo Kwofe died in Maryland after he got tangled up in window cords. The newspaper said the incident prompted a safety alert by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the federal agency responsible for the safety of most consumer products. In the November alert, the CPSC recommended for the first time that parents, grandparents and others install cordless window treatments everywhere that children live or might visit. If this isn’t possible, the agency recommends cutting cords that form a loop, raising cords out of children’s reach and moving furniture away from windows.

The danger of window cords is so well established that the CPSC lists them among the top five dangers in the home. The agency estimates that one child a month dies by strangling in window coverings, and a spokesman said that manufacturers have recalled five million window treatments in the past few months. The problem stems from the cords that connect blind slats as well as the cords used to operate window treatments. Young children who don’t understand the danger can easily become entangled in the blind cords. Once they are, they are often unable to cry for help, which means adults in the next room may not notice until it’s too late. The CPSC has issued at least three safety alerts in the past, as well as two retrofitting programs in cooperation with the Window Covering Safety Council, an industry group. Unfortunately, those retrofitting programs did not always eliminate the danger, and the window covering industry did not stop making products with dangerous cords.

I hope this most recent safety alert changes that trend. Window blind strangulation accidents are easily preventable, yet we lose one American child a month this way. Parents certainly can and should take action of their own to prevent strangulation accidents, but manufacturers could easily fix the problem in newer treatments by changing their designs to eliminate loops and make strings hard for toddlers to reach. Like all manufacturers, window treatment manufacturers have a legal responsibility to offer only products that are safe to use for their intended purpose. When products don’t measure up, and someone is killed or seriously injured as a result, victims have the right to sue the manufacturer for all of the costs and damages the shoddy product caused. As a Missouri dangerous window covering attorney, I have handled numerous such cases on behalf of families who lost children or suffered serious injuries because of dangerous miniblinds.

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As a Missouri defective product lawyer, I was very interested when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of Maclaren strollers Nov. 9. Maclaren, a British manufacturer of high-end baby products, agreed to recall ten years’ worth of umbrella strollers after the CPSC received reports of at least 12 children who had lost fingertips because their fingers were caught in the hinges of the folding stroller. (Families that own the strollers can find more information about the recall and keeping their children safe at Maclaren’s Web site or by calling 1-877-688-2326.) A few days later, on Nov. 12, the New York Post reported that the manufacturer had known about the flaw since at least 2004 but didn’t warn consumers or regulatory agencies.

The recall covers every Maclaren stroller sold in the United States since 1999, which comes out to about a million strollers from several lines. According to the Post, about half of those strollers were sold after Maclaren learned about the problem through a lawsuit filed by a Connecticut woman whose toddler lost his right pinky. Jane DeWinter was at a store, testing the one-handed folding and unfolding mechanism offered by Maclaren, when her 23-month-old son Carlos stuck his hand in the hinge. Despite two surgeries, doctors couldn’t reattach the finger. A safety engineer testified at the DeWinters’ trial that the scissor-like hinge design violates federal safety guidelines for children’s products. He also said Maclaren had a legal obligation to report the incident to the federal government. According to the Post, the manufacturer did not report the flaw, setting it up for a potential $1 million in fines.

The newspaper said that Maclaren argued that the DeWinters’ accident was the mother’s own fault for failing to watch her son’s hands. As a St. Louis product defects attorney, I can confirm that consumers do have a legal obligation to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable dangers in products. However, this doesn’t excuse manufacturers from knowingly designing children’s products that are not safe to use around children. It’s not news that children young enough to be in strollers are not very sophisticated about the dangers of hinges, electricity, small objects and other things adults use regularly. That’s why federal law requires no choking hazards in toys for children under a certain age, and why we don’t hold children responsible for failing to avoid dangers that are obvious to adults. It’s not hard to foresee that a scissor-like hinge within grabbing distance might pose a threat to small children, especially if it’s designed to be opened and closed one-handed -- inviting use by distracted, busy adults.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a Los Angeles Times report on the recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Officially, the recall is because of defective floor mats that can cause accelerators to get stuck open, causing unintentional acceleration that can propel the vehicle uncontrollably and cause serious accidents. A total of 19 deaths have been reported because of this safety flaw. In the older post, I wrote that the Times suggested advanced features in newer vehicles -- or problems with those features -- may have caused or exacerbated some of the problems. On Nov. 8, the newspaper made an even more disturbing report suggesting that regulators may not have investigated the problem thoroughly.

Since 2001, the Times said, more than 1,000 vehicle owners have reported unintended acceleration events to Toyota or to federal regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The complaints triggered eight investigations, which ultimately ended in two recalls affecting a combined total of 85,000 vehicles. However, the Times charged, NHTSA and Toyota officials responsible for investigating safety problems systematically excluded numerous reports because of how they were written, or because reports didn’t match the agencies’ ideas about how the vehicles performed. This made the problem look much smaller than some say it actually is, the newspaper said. As a result, a serious safety problem that may have existed as early as the 2001 model year is only now being addressed.

For example, the NHTSA threw out reports in which owners didn’t speculate on the cause of the problem. The agency also discarded incident reports saying that brakes didn’t stop the vehicle, because its official position is that brakes always overcome engines. Toyota itself, in reports submitted to the NHTSA, excluded reports of acceleration lasting more than a few seconds because it believed its vehicle design made this impossible. Selective exclusions like these allowed the NHTSA to close at least five investigations for “not enough reported problems.” This included an investigation of Lexus vehicles in which the agency discarded 36 out of 37 reports. The newspaper included several anecdotes from Toyota and Lexus owners who experienced the problems firsthand, including a retired engineer who lost his wife of 46 years when his 2005 Camry accelerated over a cliff in central California.

As a St. Louis car crash attorney, I am concerned about what this could mean for the millions of Toyota owners in Missouri and southern Illinois, and around the United States. If federal regulators failed to thoroughly investigate this problem -- whether the problem was intentional or not -- they may have left millions of people exposed to these extremely dangerous acceleration accidents. In fact, if problems with the vehicles’ on-board computers or mechanics are the real culprit, rather than floor mats, nearly every late-model Toyota and Lexus is impossible to make safe without extensive retrofitting. That means millions of Americans are exposed to deadly accidents that strike at random times, and regardless of how safe the driver might be. It also means that Toyota and Lexus owners may need to garage their vehicles in order to avoid catastrophic crashes, an expensive and inconvenient proposition.

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As a Missouri defective automotive product attorney, I had already heard about Toyota Motor Corp.’s safety recall of 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles. This recall, the largest in Toyota’s history, was announced after the automaker and federal regulators found that floor mat problems could cause the accelerator pedal to jam while open. (Toyota and Lexus owners can check Toyota’s press release for information on how to stay safe.) Regulators believe the problem has caused at least five fatal crashes and hundreds of other incidents, including a crash in suburban San Diego that killed an off-duty Highway Patrol officer and three family members. But an Oct. 18 article in the Los Angeles Times said the problem may be exacerbated by problems with electronic systems in the vehicles.

According to the article, in fact, the systems that pose the problems tend to be newer and may even be selling points. For example, most people in an uncontrollable speed situation think first about braking -- but modern vehicles have power-assisted brakes, which draw vacuum power from the engine. When the throttle is open all the way, that vacuum power disappears, and the power brake feature goes with it. Similarly, Toyota suggests that drivers turn off their engines when accelerating out of control. In a key-operated vehicle, drivers can turn the key to off/ACC, but this leaves them without power steering or brakes. And if they take the key out, it will lock the steering wheel. Meanwhile, newer vehicles with push-button starts require the drivers to hold the button down for three seconds to stop the engine (and remove power steering and brakes), which is a long time when your vehicle is out of control. And shifting into neutral, another Toyota solution, can be difficult and confusing in vehicles with “automanual” shifters.

I applaud Toyota for taking action on this issue, rather than actively trying to cover it up or blame after-market use. But as a southern Illinois product defects lawyer, I wonder whether it acted as quickly as it could have. The San Diego crash was at least the fifth fatal crash caused by this issue in two years, according to the Times, and federal agencies have opened nine investigations into sudden accelerations in Toyota vehicles since 2000. And the article noted that some have criticized Toyota’s lack of a fail-safe mechanism in its computerized engine for nearly 10 years. Speeding, even voluntary speeding, has been a safety issue for decades; it’s not hard to predict that involuntary, uncontrolled speeding could be deadly. To save lives, manufacturers have a responsibility to come clean to the public as soon as reasonably possible.

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Used Chevy Impalas sold by rental company Enterprise Rent-A-Car were missing a standard safety feature, the Kansas City Star reported Aug. 15. Side air bags were standard on Impalas sold to consumers between 2006 and 2008, the article said -- but Enterprise asked the manufacturer to delete that option when it placed its order, as a cost-saving measure. When the cars were later retired from the fleet and sold as used cars, the Star reported, consumers may have mistakenly believed they came with the same standard equipment other Impalas had. Furthermore, the newspaper found that hundreds of online advertisements by Enterprise incorrectly touted the cars as having front and rear side air bags.

Safety experts consider side curtain air bags important because side-impact crashes are the second deadliest kind of crash. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, side-impact crashes caused 17.4% of all fatal crashes in 2007, second only to head-on crashes (32.2% of fatal crashes). And according to the Star article, studies have found that side air bags with head protection reduce drivers’ deaths by 45% in driver-side collisions. Side air bags are not federally required, as front air bags are, but observers expect side air bags to be near-universally standard soon, in order to comply with stricter federal side-impact safety rules taking effect Sept. 1.

According to the article, Enterprise ordered about 66,000 Impalas nationwide without the side air bags. This did not violate federal safety standards, the company said, and helped save $175 per car, for a total of $11.5 million. Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research organization funded by auto insurance companies, called the decision “astounding.” He noted that used-car buyers researching safety ratings could be misled, because cars are rated according to their standard safety features, and suggested that Enterprise’s decision could provoke numerous car accident lawsuits in Missouri and around the U.S. He and another safety expert said deleting a standard safety feature is not a practice they’d ever heard of before.

In response to the article, Enterprise pulled the incorrect advertisements off its Web site and said it planned to correct the information. It also said it would write to the owners of the 745 Impalas it had already sold to explain the problem and offer to buy the cars back at $750 over their Kelly Blue Book value.

As a St. Louis car crash lawyer, I have read a lot of the research into the dangers of side-impact crashes. They are considered extremely dangerous, in part because they can cause jagged metal and broken glass to protrude into the passenger area of the car, endangering all the occupants nearby. They can also trigger a rollover accident, which throws occupants around the inside of the vehicle or out of it, exposing them to head injuries and spinal cord damage that can leave them permanently disabled. Parents and others concerned about safety may well want to look up which vehicles contain side air bags before renting or buying -- but when Enterprise and other sellers provide misleading information, consumers can’t make well-informed decisions. If they are later involved in a serious accident and discover that they’re missing the air bags they thought they had, the law says they may hold the sellers legally liable for their injuries.

Continue reading "Newspaper Investigation Finds Rental Car Company Advertised Cars Had Side Airbags When They Did Not" »

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Victims of a fatal a rear-end crash can have a new trial in their Missouri product liability lawsuit, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled May 5. According to the Associated Press, the court said misbehavior by attorneys for Ford tainted the trial, entitling motorist Michael Nolte and the family of Trooper Michael Newton to a new trial. The decision is also seen as a victory for law enforcement officers and families who have long contended that Ford Crown Victorias -- vehicles commonly used as police cars -- are unreasonably likely to explode into flames when rear-ended.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to Nolte and Newton in 2003. Newton, the state trooper, had pulled Nolte over for a traffic violation and put him in the trooper’s car on the shoulder of Interstate 70. When they were rear-ended by a pickup truck, the cruiser burst into flames, killing Newton and injuring Nolte before he could be pulled from the fire. Newton’s family and Nolte sued Ford, alleging that Ford’s vehicle design was defective because it placed the fuel tank behind the back axle, making an explosion likely in a rear-end accident. They also sued the truck’s driver and his or her employer, a claim that has been resolved and is not at issue in the appeal.

At trial, Missouri product liability attorneys for the plaintiff wanted to introduce evidence of ten similar accidents involving rear-ended Crown Victorias -- four before Newton’s accident and six after. They were particularly interested in showing evidence that Crown Victorias retrofitted with shields on their gas tanks, as Newton’s was, still carried an unreasonably high risk of explosion. The judge ruled that they could only introduce the four earlier accidents, but a lawyer for Ford introduced evidence about the six others anyway. Because the plaintiffs were under the judge’s orders not to discuss that evidence or argue their side of the story, this put them at a disadvantage, the Missouri Supreme Court found. Thus, it said, they are entitled to a new trial.

Members of the law enforcement community have been concerned about problems with Crown Victoria gas tanks for more than 20 years. (The related Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car may share this flaw, though they are less likely to be used as police cars.) The concern is the placement of the vehicle’s gas tank behind the rear axle, which critics say make it highly likely to be punctured in a rear-end collision, causing an instant explosion. Within moments, officers and others inside the car can be surrounded by flames. By one estimate, at least 21 law enforcement officers and uncounted civilians have died in this way. In 2002, Ford retrofitted hundreds of thousands of police Crown Victorias with gas tank shields, but critics dispute whether this has helped.

Flaws such as this with the design or manufacture of a vehicle are a form of product defects, just like problems with toys or hairbrushes. When they cause or exacerbate a serious car wreck, victims in Missouri have the right to file a St. Louis auto product liability lawsuit holding the vehicle’s manufacturer legally responsible. In these lawsuits, victims can claim compensation for the loss of a loved one, a permanent disability or a serious injury, as well as compensation for medical bills and other costs of the crash.

If you and your family are in this situation, The Lowe Law Firm would like to help. Based in St. Louis and Belleville, Ill., we represent people who were injured by flawed consumer products throughout Missouri and southern Illinois. If you would like to learn more, we offer free, confidential consultations -- so there’s no risk to you in telling us about your case and learning about your legal options. To set one up, you can contact us through our Web site or call 1-877-678-3400.

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Last week, the Consumer Products Safety Commission recalled about 1.6 million cribs because of defects that can trap and smother infants.

The recalls involve drop side cribs made for New York-based Delta Enterprise Corp. There are two hazardous defects, one involves a spring peg and the other involves missing safety pegs.

When a spring peg is not engaged, the drop side of the crib can detach. At least one child, an eight-month-old, has died as a result of the defect.

The recall also involves missing safety pegs. When the pegs are missing, crib locks can disengage and detach causing a hazardous gap. The CPSC reports that at least one infant has died. There have been two reports of entrapment and nine instances of disengagement.

The recalled cribs with the spring peg defect were made in China from and sold from January 2000 through January 2007 for between $33 and $200.

The recalled cribs with the missing safety pegs were made in Taiwan or Indonesia. They were sold at major retail outlets from January 1995 through September 2007 for about $100.

Parents are urged to immediately find other sleeping options for their children and to request a repair kit.

If a child has been injured or has died in an accident involving a crib, we urge you to contact The Lowe Law Firm. The Lowe Law Firm will provide you with a free initial consultation. We can meet with you in our office, at the hospital or in the privacy of your home. Contact The Lowe Law Firm online or call 877-678-3400.

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ATV's including the Yamaha Rhino have been alleged to have killed more than five hundred people in 2006. Twenty percent of the people that perished in these unfortunate accidents were children. Amid the ATV deaths, 146,600 people visited hospital emergency rooms due to injuries from the well-known Yamaha Rhino ATV within the same year. The information of the alleged incidents was found from information gathered surrounding ATV crashes. The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) gathered the information regarding the crashes of the alleged defective ATV’s.

Accidents involving rollovers with ATV’s are common with vehicles of this type. Many people use the vehicles to ride off the road in a more naturalistic setting. ATV’s can reach speeds of up to fifty-give miles per hour and some way as much as a quarter ton. Three-quarters of ATV accidents wind up yielding trauma or injuries to the head and spinal chord of its victims. Many people that sustain such injuries sustain life threatening and or lifelong impairments. Paralysis is a common side effect of spinal chord injuries in these types of accidents.

The Yamaha Rhino ATV is alleged to be one of the most hazardous vehicles of its type on the market at the present time. People that view the Yamaha Rhino in a negative light allege that the vehicle has narrow tires and is extremely top heavy making it quite hazardous to drive. These type of defects make it probable that the Yamaha Rhino will tip over while making turns even at lower speeds and while on even ground. Also, the legs of passengers are exposed in a manner that leaves them completely unprotected if a rollover occurs. People involved in rollover incidents on Yamaha Rhinos have allegedly sustained leg, ankle, and feet injuries. Generally, the bones are either completely broken or pulverized in the alleged crashes. Some people come away completely disabled or have had to have arms of legs amputated as a direct result. Usually if children are involved in a rollover crash involving the Yamaha Rhino, it is alleged that it is fatal more times than not.

The year 2007 brought about the implementation of offering modifications to safeguard the Yamaha Rhinos by its parent company. It remains to be seen whether the implementation of doors and more handholds will make the vehicles any safer. The company has allegedly failed to recall or give refunds to the owners of Yamaha Rhinos.

Pennsylvania has allegedly had the largest amount of ATV deaths in the nation since 1982. This information is part of the CPSC’s report. The states next in line with large amounts of ATV deaths are: California, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Texas. All states across America can lay claim to at least on death with ATV’s at fault. The CPSC has estimated that in 2005 there were 666 deaths due to ATV’s and they believe it is possible that number could be as high as 870 this year. Consumer advocates are working hard to implement policies that would safeguard children by prohibiting the sale of ATV’s for the use of children.

The Lowe Law Firm is familiar with ATV and in particular the Yamaha Rhino and handling product liability lawsuits against the companies that make them. If you need an experienced lawyer to handle your case anywhere in the United States, please call Jeffrey Lowe, 877-678-3400.

By Delsia Hartford and Jeffrey Lowe

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The Yamaha Rhino is a prime example of the need for more regulation and safety measures when it comes to ATVs. Lives could have been saved if more controls were in place, particularly with the design of the Rhino. Complaints are pouring in, alleging that even at low speed and during turns on flat surfaces, rollovers occur due to a defect in the design—a high center of gravity makes the vehicle top-heavy.

In November, 2006 a 10-year-old girl was killed when a Yamaha Rhino tipped over on top of her. Police said three children were on the Rhino when it overturned as the driver, the girl’s 12-year-old cousin, tried to make a left turn while going down a hill. He tried to lift the vehicle off the girl, but it was too heavy.

Another near-tragic accident happened in Chino Hills, CA., involving four youths. Without permission from a parent, they took a spin in a Rhino and the vehicle swerved before one juvenile in the back seat jumped off. The driver then overcompensated, and the ATV pitched back the other way before it rolled over. Three of the youths were seriously injured.
And in Edmonton, Alberta, a 13-year-old boy, Wyatt Lyal Bauer, was killed while driving a Rhino, prompting a spinal cord surgeon to ask for a ban on people under the age of 16 driving ATVs and for the licensing of all ATV drivers. He had previously operated on a number of people whose backs were broken in ATV accidents. "We've seen a huge increase in the amount of ATV-related trauma -- not just deaths, but people getting buggered up,” said Dr. Lavoie of University Hospital.

Apparently Wyatt went around a corner on a hill, lost control of the Rhino and it rolled over on top of him. Friends found him about 20 to 30 minutes later; they lifted off the vehicle and tried to revive him. A helicopter airlifted him from the scene to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Dr. Lavoie wasn't surprised to hear of Wyatt’s death because he knows first-hand the dangers of mixing ATVs and kids. His own two teen aged boys were involved in two separate ATV rollovers. Neither boy was badly hurt, but afterwards they didn't want anything to do with driving an ATV again.

"We've had our scares with it," Lavoie says. "My kids don't want to ride that freakin' thing now. They're not interested."

ATVs are now so large and powerful that it would take a big, strong child to handle a machine such as a 450- or 660-cc Yamaha Rhino. "When it gets over-balanced, unless you're a big strong guy, you can't pull that thing back up," Lavoie says.

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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that consumers cannot sue the makers of federally approved medical devices for design defects in state court.

The decision was a blow to the family of Charles Riegel. While undergoing a medical procedure to unclog an artery, a catheter burst and seriously injured Riegel. He died in 2004.

Riegel’s family sued the catheter’s manufacturer, Medtronic, Inc. The family alleged the catheter was defectively designed and had an inadequate warning label. Medtronic argued that because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the catheter before it was introduced to the market, federal law preempted state court lawsuits.

In Riegel v. Medtronic, an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court agreed. In an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court concluded that state lawsuits that could impose requirements that differed from federal regulations were prohibited.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented. She argued that when enacting federal laws governing medical devices, Congress never intended “a radical curtailment of state common-law lawsuits seeking compensation for injuries caused by defectively designed or labeled medical devices.”

Big business is applauding this ruling. According to the Associated Press, the health care technology industry is a $75 billion-a-year giant. This decision will further insulate big business from liability for their negligence. But for consumers – and for families like the Riegels – this ruling effectively prevents them from using one of the few tools left following an injury caused by a carelessly designed product.

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The Yamaha Rhino is the subject of many lawsuits and claims because it is poorly designed. One has to wonder how a vehicle—any vehicle—would be approved for sale without doors, and other alleged design flaws such as being top-heavy and having tires that are too narrow. Regardless, that seems to be the case with the Yamaha Rhino ATV, a recreational vehicle that is racking up injuries and even death.

And based on performance, it might even be mis-branded. ATV stands for All-Terrain-Vehicle. However, looking at the unit’s troubled history, it appears that the ATV fails to live up to its name.

Introduced to the market in 2003, the Yamaha Rhino ATV appeared to be doomed from the start. Critics of the unit claim that it is top-heavy with narrow tires, which makes the ATV prone for rollovers.

And when that happens, there is little in the original design to keep limbs safely contained within the unit, as there are no doors. If seat belts are not used, there is a far greater chance that the occupant will be ejected fully, or partially from the unit—deepening the injuries, or even causing them to be fatal.

There are many heartbreaking stories connected to the Yamaha Rhino ATV, and given that so many ATV riders are children—well, you can guess what is coming next.

Thanksgiving was anything by thankful for the Vargas family in California, after 12-year-old Ashlyn Vargas was killed after her Yamaha Rhino ATV flipped on a turn. Ashlyn, who believed in seat belts but had forgotten to buckle up, was thrown from the ATV. However, critics say that the unit would not have tipped over in the first place had it not proven top-heavy, or designed with a narrow frame that served to exacerbate the problem.

Another tragedy happened in June of last year, when a nine-year-old boy from East Texas died after being thrown from a slow-moving Yamaha Rhino ATV. J.T. Crow, who was a passenger in a Rhino ATV driven by his 12-year-old sister, died from severe trauma to the head after the Rhino ATV rolled on top of him. The child’s mother said that the ATV was traveling at a slow rate of speed just a short distance from the house when the accident happened.

The Crow family is filing a wrongful death suit against the manufacturer, over the loss of their son.

Even though nether child was wearing a helmet in the foregoing case, others wearing full helmets and properly strapped in have suffered neck injuries, and have had limbs crushed and in some cases amputated after the lack of doors and window mesh failed to contain limbs and heads when the rollover-prone ATVs, as they have been described, fail to stay upright.

In September of 2006, the manufacturer is reported to have sent a letter to all Yamaha Rhino ATV owners warning that the vehicle was prone to tip when negotiating sharp turns. While many Yamaha Rhino ATV owners might fail to concur with this observation in view of experiences where the vehicle has been prone to tip even on flat surfaces as low speeds, Yamaha is reported to have made the case for seat belt and helmet use, and to keep limbs inside the vehicle at all times as, it is assumed, compensation for the lack of doors.

However, the physics and dynamics of a sharp change in trajectory, which given a rollover can happen in the blink of an eye, can have a dramatic affect on limbs and the neck, which can be jerked in various directions without the capacity for the driver to know what is happening.

Finally, in 2007 the manufacturer offered to retrofit all new and used Rhino ATVs with doors and additional hand holds. However, those modifications do not address the alleged design flaw, which sees the unit top-heavy and tip-prone.

Many critics are openly calling for a formal recall, and wonder aloud why it hasn’t happened. So far the manufacturer, according to best information, has yet to extend a recall, or extend an invitation for a refund.

In the meantime, spring will soon be here. Once the remnants of winter clears away in the snow States, often the first priority is to get outside and get into the ATV.

We can only hope that there will be no further injuries or deaths, before definitive action is taken.

Written by Gordon Gibb with contributions by Jeffrey Lowe of the Lowe Law Firm

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Yamaha Rhino's are the subjects of lawsuits and claims throughout the country because of their propensity to roll over due to their narrow wheel base and high center of gravity. The problem is made much more serious because Rhino's which are all terrain vehicles made by Yamaha Corporation lack doors so when they rollover and the driver or passenger's arms or legs get outside the Rhino, severe injuries and amputations are the result.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the aftermath of a Yamaha Rhino rollover speaks volumes, given the number of people who have been killed or injured while riding in the ATV—many of them children.

A photograph of Ashlyn Vargas, a bright and effervescent 12-year-old who was killed when her Yamaha Rhino ATV flipped on top of her and crushed the teen. It was the day after Thanksgiving.

Then there is Matt, a young man who appears healthy and intact in every respect until he pops of his prosthetic leg, displaying the stump where is right knee should have been. He lost his lower right leg after the Yamaha Rhino ATV he was in, rolled.

Introduced in 2003, the Yamaha Rhino ATV proved immensely popular: imagine an ATV with seating for two, seat belts, a roll cage and protection from the sun. A suggestion for hours of fun.

But here’s what it didn’t have: Doors. A low center of gravity. A wide frame, and wide tires for stability. Suddenly the Rhino was earning a less-then stellar reputation amongst enthusiasts. One blogger posted this comment in September of 2006:

“They look pretty fun and bonus, two seats. A seat for the daughter and seat belts.
The only bad thing about them is safety. If you flip/roll one of them, say goodbye to one or both of your legs. They should put small doors on the sides to keep your legs on the inside in case of a rollover. Other than that…”

There you go. Back to Matt, who looks none too happy displaying his stump in the on-line photo.

Dwight could not be happy, either. While you can’t see his face in the photo, one look at his mangled left leg tells you that he suffered a great deal after only a few hours in his brand-new 2004 Yamaha Rhino side-by-side ATV. It appears as if the lower half of his left leg, at mid-shin, was shorn off but surgically re-attached. Dwight is said to have endured a lengthy hospital stay.

With room for two, and a shallow box in back, the Rhino ATV was marketed as part utility vehicle, part recreational vehicle. It looks rugged, with knobby tires and green in color, like a small Jeep. The term ‘4 x 4’ is stenciled on the rear panel, by the taillight.

But there are no doors—nothing to prevent limbs from taking the brunt of a rollover. Even if the operator were wearing a helmet and the supplied seat belt, which is recommended, there is little protection for an arm, or a limb to flail into harm’s way.

After years of accident reports and several deaths, Yamaha finally came to the table in October of 2007 with an offer to retrofit doors and a passenger grab handle to any Yamaha Rhino ATV, regardless of age and condition.

It is also understood that the 2008 models will ship with doors and grab handle factory-installed. However, those improvements do not answer critics who maintain the Rhino carries a center of gravity that is too high for safe off-roading, and a frame that is too narrow only exacerbates that problem.

Narrow, and top-heavy. A recipe for disaster, even on relatively flat surfaces, and at slow speeds.

“The slow speed my daughter was going when this happened—and I saw the tire tracks, it tipped really easily,” Ashlyn Vargas’ grieving father Primo, told KSBY 6 Action News.

Lawsuits filed against the manufacturer concerning the Yamaha Rhino ATV allege the unit is dangerously unstable.

Primo Vargas, featured in a media report, gets the last word:

“Don’t make the mistake I did. Find out what’s going on before you put your kid in any kind of vehicle like this. You could cost them their life and I wouldn’t wish this pain on anybody.”

This story was written in part by
By Gordon Gibb along with Jeffrey Lowe of the Lowe Law Firm in St. Louis Missouri

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Posted In: Product Liability

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