The Toyota recall related to sudden acceleration problems is further evidence of the limits of the power of government to regulate big business. According to a recent New York Times story, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration conducted six different investigations into complaints of sudden and unexpected acceleration and closed them all with no action. It accepted Toyota's superficial explanation for the problems, and refused requests to pursue a further investigation....
Law Articles
SummaryDiscovery is the great and the only leveler of the playing field in products liability cases. Plaintiffs' lawyers owe it to their clients to know the rules and to use them to gain access to facts which are both known to the defense and capable of supporting plaintiffs' defect arguments....
The social and political values reflected in the "Click It or Ticket" seat belt safety campaign provide a powerful backdrop for the plaintiff's case....
Robert Gratzinger is an expert witness who regularly testifies for the defense in automobile defect litigation. In 2002, in the middle of a trial, he intentionally destroyed critical evidence. According to the trial judge, he and his client, American Honda, were trying to “win by cheating.”...
The first challenge for a lawyer listening to a client's description of a possible case is to answer the question, "How did the product contribute to the injury?"The two cases described below, both involving electrical defects, demonstrate the utility of the rules of safe design as a starting point in understanding a products case....
There is nothing more important in a product liability case than getting the expert testimony to come out right. Succeeding in this effort requires finding an expert whose opinion has substance, who has excellent presentation skills, and who is high on the credibility and likeability scales. Even with all of those qualities in an expert, however, the lawyer’s work is not done. The client will not have a good result unless counsel makes the right decisions about the cost of putting the case together, the flow of information to and from the expert, and the timing of expert disclosures....
Vehicle design is of major interest to both those buying a new automobile and those investigating crashworthiness issues. The common elements in crashworthiness cases are the assumptions that collisions are inevitable, and vehicles should be designed to minimize resulting injuries....
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