How much is life worth?
by Jeremy 'Panda Man' Weidenhof · 10/04/2005 12:24 pmA Brownsville, Texas jury has awarded the family of a teen killed in a rollover accident a $30 million judgement against Ford Motor Company. The Chron carries the AP story, which tells us that the family sued on the basis that the 1993 Ford pickup had a weak roof design which caused the teen’s death.
The jury found Ford ninety percent at fault, while the driver who pulled onto the roadway and struck the family’s pickup apparently got the remaining ten percent of the blame. According to the family lawyer:
"It’s shameful that we have to come to court to fight this case when they know they are selling trucks that have weak roofs and don’t protect consumers," Marchan said in a story in Tuesday’s editions of The Brownsville Herald.
Those allegations are, of course, disputed by Ford:
Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said Ford products are safe and meet strict government safety standards.
"Our condolences go out to the family, but Miss Garcia died because of the negligence of another driver hitting the Garcia vehicle while traveling at highway speeds," Vokes said in a written statement.
Apparently there is also contention over whether the teen was wearing a seatbelt, as both sides claim she either was or was not wearing it at the time of the crash. Regardless, it is interesting that a jury would assign almost sole blame to an auto manufacturer while the driver who actually struck the family’s vehicle appears to assume a very secondary role.
As you might expect, Ford does plan to appeal the verdict, so the case is not closed.
Filed Under Uncategorized ·
Comments
26 Responses to “How much is life worth?”Search
Our Sponsors
Poll
Loading ...LST Book Club
-
Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy
by Natan Sharansky -
Fear No Evil
by Natan Sharansky -
The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror
by Anatoly Shcharansky -
The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul
by Yoram Hazony -
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
by David Brooks -
Snobbery: The American Version
by Joseph Epstein -
A Conflict of Visions: Idealogical Origins of Political Struggles
by Thomas Sowell
Sometimes you really just want to string some of these jury’s up. This is what we get when the lawyers try to get anyone WITH a brain and WITH some opinions OFF of the Jury.
Can anyone say, “deep pockets?”
I wish someone would say “personal responsibility”.
Corporate Responsibility. If it’s a products liability case, Ford is responsible for ensuring that the car is safe to drive, especially when some foreseeable accidents occur.
Why do conservatives insist on putting the onus on personal responsibility on everyday citizens, yet they never trust 12 everyday citizens to get together and make a correct call on a legal dispute, as juries have done now for centuries.
The reason they didn’t go after the driver of the other vehicle is of course because you cannot get blood out of a turnip. The insurance carrier, assuming there was one, probably paid the policy limits and walked away knowing that was all they were legally liable for. The policy holder had nothing to take so the plaintiff didn’t bother trying. The galling part about this and every other liability ruling is the legal theory that it does not matter if you were only 1% responsible for the accident, if you are the last guy standing, you get hit for the entire amount. This is patently unfair. I would like Owen to explain to me if he can, why the legal system thinks this is right and proper.
Rorschach,
Your statement regarding proportionate responsibility isn’t true in Texas. If someone is factually responsible for a small percent, they’re not going to be hit for the whole thing just because a defendant is insolvent or otherwise doesn’t have deep pockets. Any defense attorney worth having a bar card knows that if the Plaintiff doesn’t bring the driver in this case, you better add them as a co-defendant yourself to bring them into the calculation of responsibility.
Obviously none of us have seen most of the evidence in this case - we’re working through the perception of a reporter that may or may not have attended the trial. I will be interested to see what the jury instructions asked and how they drove the damages to over $30 mil, presumably without punatives (I would assume punatives would be specifically reported).
While I think this is an excess case to sue Ford I just want to point out nothign about this article tells us the specific details of what happenend.
But no roof in the world will save someone not wearing their seat belt. However from the article “The lack of physical evidence clearly proved that she was not wearing her seat belt. This is another tragic reminder that seat belts can help save lives only when they are worn,” Vokes said.
VS.
“Texas Department of Public Safety reports prove she was wearing her seat belt.”
So Ford has more knowledge in this fact then the State Police? Was someone from Ford actually at the crash site pulling this girl from the wreck?
But those goverment safety standards are “minimum” safety standards automakers should strive to exceed them under their own volition.
But according to Republican manadate for small central Fed government in theory they shouldn’t exist in the first place.
But all vehicles produced today are perfectly safe when used properly, sort of like coffee is hot dummy so be careful before you drink it.
But maybe the driver was a suicide driver and proclaiming jihad on this poor girl.
I think both sides of this case are ridiculus and while we’re debating the legalize of this case the fact remains it wasn’t our child so how do we know what we would do or how we would react in this case?
Rorschach,
NOT LEGAL ADVICE:
“the legal theory that it does not matter if you were only 1% responsible for the accident, if you are the last guy standing, you get hit for the entire amount.”
Sometimes defendants will be held joint and severally liable, which means that each defendant is responsible for the entire judgment. HOWEVER, this has nothing to do with “last man standing.” The idea is that if the defendants have tortiously caused the plaintiff harm, why should the plaintiff have to go after each defendant individually to get their share of the damages awarded?
Talk about waste of judicial resources. Rather, the idea is that the plaintiff should get whatever is owed to him according to the judgment, and that the defendants are then free to go after each other to divvy up their responsiblity for the torts accordingly.
The point is that the defendant who is 1% liable may pay 100% of the damages, but is perfectly free to go after the defendants who are 40% and 59% liable to receive what is known as “contribution.” And the defendant almost always does so. The defendant who is 1% liable will likely end up paying that amount of the judgment, excluding costs and fees, of course.
For the record, J + S liability is the norm in the vast majority of states in the union. It is an extremely old concept.
Bobby,
I think he was referring to joint and several liability, not proportionate responsibility.
jeffd: Recalls of vehicles with safety issues happen all the time. Not all vehicles are “perfectly safe when used properly”, as you proclaim. Humans design and manufacture vehicles, and those humans make mistakes now and then.
TP: After my post, I realized where his mixup was.
Bobby, so my wife got rear ended a while back. Can I sue the car maker for not making the brakes good enough? When are individual PEOPLE going to be held responsible for their OWN actions? And yes, that includs accidents.
Now if the steering wheel had fallen off and that cause the accident, then I can readily admit that the car manufacture could be at fault. But from what I have seen of this case, the car manufacturer isn’t responsible for anything.
#4
Perhaps my comment was a bit terse. It’s not that I don’t believe in corporate responsibility. But to assign 90% of the blame to the manufacturer of a machine as opposed to 10% to a human being operating a machine reeks of going after the “deep pockets”. I am not a legal professional or even particularly knowledgeable in that area, so my comments are strictly from a layman’s perspective.
I cite personal responsibility here in the same way I would cite it in the case of a wrongful death suit against a firearms manufacturer. There are some products which can never be fully made non-lethal. That includes vehicles as well as firearms. I have never felt that a manufacturer who has made a good faith effort to make a safe product should be held liable for its’ failure under extraordinary misuse.
Can I take it from the judgement that the jury believed the design of a machine was 9 times more at fault than a human being operating another machine? I guess I don’t know all the facts, but that really doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in that jury to me.
Bobby said:
“Why do conservatives insist on putting the onus on personal responsibility on everyday citizens, yet they never trust 12 everyday citizens to get together and make a correct call on a legal dispute, as juries have done now for centuries.”
That’s pretty weak. We don’t always trust it for the same reason we don’t trust 535 everyday citizens who get together to make a call on legislation.
I’m going to bring a little bit more perspective to this case. In the interest of full disclosure, I was once a legal assistant for a products liability defense firm that worked for one of the major automobile manufacturers.
The very first thing to look at here is where this verdict was handed down: Brownsville. South Texas, as a rule, is a very hard place to try product liabilities claims because the juries are so plaintiff friendly. Typically, they consist of lower-income individuals with little formal education. When a case arises that involves the death of a teenager from their community and a lawyer from their community is telling them that an enormous heartless corporation is at fault, it is very easy to grant a large verdict.
When I worked at my firm, we did jury research to see how people reacted to certain arguments and defenses. I can almost guarantee that Ford’s lawyers tried to show their engineering data to prove that their roof met NHTSA standards for strength, but I also know that the plaintiff’s lawyers dug up some experts to say just the opposite. I’ve seen these “expert’s” testimony before, and it isn’t always overwhelmingly scientific. It plays on the emotions and fears of the jury and results in a higher verdict.
Finally, the plaintiff’s lawyer works for the Watts Law firm, a highly profitable plaintiff’s firm. They’ve been trying cases for quite some time and know how to play to a jury. They OWN South Texas and are probably very cozy with the judge. Ford probably had some local counsel in the case, but the bulk of their defense team probably came out of Houston, San Antonio, or Austin. I’m not sure who does Ford’s product liability right now.
I could go on for quite some time about how these trials really work, but I probably should get back to my studies.
I am unsure, but I THINK the firm handling Ford’s side was Phillips and Akers. My wife used to work for them and this sounds like one of the cases she was involved with, but I could be wrong. TP, You’re right, joint and several was the theory I was referring to (but Alzheimers must be kicking in because the name was on the tip of my tounge but just would not come out).
Joint and Several sounds good in theory, but the problem arises when people who are completely unrelated to the actual event are dragged into it and must spend money defending themselves. An example was the Doctor vs Elevator door case. The problem was traced to the maintenence people leaving the elevator in a diagnostic mode that overode the multiple failsafes in the door. All elevators have this mode for servicing the elevator. The fault was squarely on Kone, the company Christus contracted with to maintain the elevator. Otis Elevator was dragged into it because they had money, not because they manufactured a faulty product. Otis spent a lot of money to defend themselves. Luckily they were released from liability, but they still had to pay the lawyers, not a small sum I might add. (and of course KTRH still got it wrong when they did thier story.)
If this is the case I am thinking of, firestone or goodyear (can’t remember, probably firestone), The Auto dealership that sold the car, and Ford were all named. Now I ask you, why the dealer if not for money? They did not manufacture the vehicle, they had no input into the design at all. They had no data that they failed to share with the plaintiff. So what exactly is thier liability here? Under what theory are they included?
BTW, Mike is absolutely correct. The valley is EXTREMELY Plaintiff friendly and corrupt as hell IMHO. One of the judges that I believe was working the case was being investigated for demanding and accepting bribes from most of the law firms that work down there when he apparently blew his brains out (or might have had them blown out by someone who didn’t want to be connected to the case, the jury is still out on that…)
Bobby
Oh I am well aware of that, my car was the subject of one such recall. That’s actaully not what I meant anyway about the safety standards.
To All:
Speaking of human life and its “worth.”
I read an article in the news where a mother was busted by a undercover cop for allegedly trying to sell her 6 yr old daughter for $10,000. After the undercover cop told her that the girl would be sexually abused and then used for organ donation the woman responded by handing the cop her birth certificate.
Nice Huh?
davewolfgang: There’s a big difference between taking responsibility when the product works like it should and when the product fails to work as advertised. Products liability law exists to compensate for the fact that the inherent problems that may arise due to defects in products is put on the person who can best prevent the problem - the manufacturer. I’m not saying the person who negligently runs into another person’s car should not be held responsible - I’m saying that negligent drivers AND corporations who manufacture products in a defective manner should BOTH be held responsible to fairly compensate the plaintiffs.
Bramanti: And you call my comparison weak? I think there’s a big difference between trusting 12 people who are asked very limited questions about factual situations where they have zero vested interest in anything other than determining the truth and fulfilling their civic duty, and trusting 535 “everyday citizens” (*COUGH*COUGH*) who oftentimes have very vested interests that are not compatible with the interests of their constituents.
If you want to blame someone for the “failure” in this case we don’t even know the facts on (but OF COURSE the jury was stupid if it didn’t rule in favor of the corporation, didn’t they get the Republican’s talking points on how plaintiff’s lawyers are all greedy sharks who CAN’T POSSIBLY have a valid case - EVER!), don’t blame the jury. Blame the defense lawyers who couldn’t communicate their “obviously superior” case or blame the fact that there were just bad facts and Ford did have a defective vehicle. As conservative as the appellate judiciary is in this state (for now), you have ZERO to bitch about. If this case stands, I feel confident that it was right, considering all the incredible hoops plaintiffs in this state must jump through.
Oh, I most certainly DO blame the jury, I also blame a system that is massively biased for the Plaintiff and the lawyers on both sides. There is no incentive for lawyers to NOT file against anyone they think they can. Defense lawyers generally make money whether they win or loose. Defendants usually throw money at Plaintiffs to try to make them go away, knowing they are going to pay through the nose in legal fees even if they win. For Plaintiffs, they just about can’t loose, they can take a settlement offer and walk away, even if the case is basically baseless. The only way they loose is if they are stupid and get greedy and try to take it all the way to trial. The only looser here is the defendant, whether he deserves to be or not. If I had my druthers, we’d have some variant of “looser pays” like they have in the UK.
TP, how is having to file additional suits against co-defendants not a waste of judicial resources? since the original judgement already determines percentage of liability, why not divy up the award then and there? and if one of the defendants closes up shop (assuming it was a corporation and not a sole proprietorship and the officers aren’t personally liable) how are the other defendants going to go after them? Sure, the plaintiff gets his part but the proportionate liability ends up meaning nothing. Legally that may be how it is supposed to work, but you know it often does not work out that way. The last guy standing is left holding the bag more often than not and he’s usually the last guy standing because he has too much to loose if he closes up shop.
Rorschach,
Ultimately, I’m not interested in articulating a thorough justification and defense for the doctrine of J+S liability, although there is a plethora of such material available should you desire to really engage the issue. I can recommend some starting places if you like. I will say that I find the doctrine to be highly defensible, and that I think your understanding of its role and place a bit awry.
Again, the theory is that where all of the defendants have contributed to the plaintiff’s injury, they are all tortfeasors. Why should they enjoy the fruits of their misdeeds by forcing the plaintiff to spend even more time and money than he/she/it already has by going after each defendant individually for their pro rata share?
If there is indeed a risk of someone “holding the bag,” as you point out, why should it be the plaintiff? Why should the tortfeasors enjoy this benefit?
The defendants are the ones who committed the tort. Let them sort it out, so goes the theory.
If you don’t buy this, fine. I’m not here to convince you, though I’d note this is simply one of many, many justifications for J+S liability.
Also, I’d add that you still seem to be confusing proportionate liability with J+S liability. If a finder of fact finds one defendant only 1% liable, there is no reason under the law they will ever pay more than 1% of the judgment (excluding transaction costs). Even if they pay 100% of the judgment, they can recover 99% from the other defendant(s), and they have an absolute right to do so as a matter of law.
As you point out, it is an unfair world. Sometimes, defendants may go insolvent in the course of the trial. You seem to think the plaintiff, who, under our scenario, has done no wrong at all, should bear the total risk of this insolvency, rather than a defendant who has contributed to the plaintiff’s harm.
*shrug* To each their own. I’m not here to convince you otherwise.
And I’d also add, just in general, as someone who has done almost exclusively civil defense work, representing all manner of corporations in all manner of mass tort litigation, and who has never, ever, represented a plaintiff in any capacity in a civil tort suit, that the notion that the “system,” whatever that means, “is massively biased for the Plaintiff” is nothing short of preposterous.
Perhaps other lawyers feel differently, but that does not come remotely close to describing the legal world I have inhabited for the last few years. JMO.
This whole thing is ridiculous.
If I crash my Ford I am responsible.
If someone crashes into me they are responsible.
If I wear my seatbelt and live, I live.
If I don’t wear my seatbelt, I’m a dead dumbass.
If the auto manufacturers were required to build their cars and trucks to prevent the deaths of any dumbass in any situation under any conditions no one could afford them.
The proliferation of “stupid people” lawsuits and outrageous settlements or judgments has got to stop. It is against nature that stupid people be that protected, how else can natural selection proceed in its infinite wisdom to improve species?!
We have managed in the last 20 years or so to cover ourselves up with a blanket of “stupid people” laws which haven’t helped us to deal with our close-to-overwhelming “stupid people” problem. We have dumbed down our educational system and almost every other system we have so those of us who have 2-3 brain cells to rub together must now support the rest with no brain cells to rub together.
All of this madness because some stupid granny burned herself with a very hot cup of McDonald’s coffee marked “very hot coffee” and some other stupid person stored gasoline in an open top gallon glass jar next to the water heater in the garage where the kids and the dog often played and killed their own kids and dog too (naturally this was the fault of the water heater manufacturer!!). The list of stupidity goes on and on. Lawyers who bring these cases are on the list, as well as judges who allow these idiots to bring the cases into their courts.
I fear this trend has gone on so long the not-so-stupid and not-stupid folks are doomed to extinction. Reverse evolution due to a manmade legal system. WOW!
I have been in south Texas attending the funeral service for ‘Buster’ Adami, my cousin and also an attorney on this case. I wager to think that he felt strongly about the case and can not fathom Buster being anything but straight and committed to a good end.
Dean Jones - #23
Nicely said! Common sense is sorely lacking in this sue, sue, sue society. Your McDonald reference reminded me of the bogus “finger in the salad” suit at Wendy’s. It seems as if some folks (not necessarily stupid people) want something for nothing and will do anything to get it! And, there’s always the ambulance chasing lawyers standing in line wanting and willing to take these case(s). As my dear old Pappy once said, “Follow the money”
If some folks spent as much time time and energy in developing a good idea or honestly working toward a goal as they did in trying to screw the system, they’d be a lot better off and so would society in general.
my .02
Frivolous lawsuits are a big reason that product cost so much. General aviation ceased to exisit for a great number of years because frivolous lawsuits. One case an aircraft company lost because the seat belts did not hold. The deaths of the perple inside had nothing to do with pilot flying into the side of a mountian at over 200mph. Product liability insurance was costing as much as the plane itself.
I think that there needs to be a system in place that would throw out frivolous lawsuits before they get to court.