Jury awards $105.5 M in baby's death

the users to collaps and hide them. Perhaps the users didn't relock the seat in the upright position properly.

I know in my car it took me 30 days to figure out how to get the seat to lock properly. The seat kept lurching and collapsing when I made sudden stops.

I feel sorry for the family, but if the guy behind them impacted @ twice the speed limit that is excessive.

allowing the head of the adult front seat passenger to hit the head of the baby. This is a defect that has been known for years.

In some states (I don't know about Tennessee) cases like this are tried against all defendants at once and the jury renders a joint verdict against everyone. I would bet that the plaintiffs had expert witnesses that testified that although the accident was caused by the reckless driver, the baby would not have died if not for the seat collapse.

to the big settlement

ie, is it something that all, or almost all, cars and vans are vulnerable to?

Considering the laws of physics, how easily fixable is it, and yet still leaving the ability to satisfy the customer who wants the flexibility to adjust their seat to a position most comfortable?

and occurs even with low to moderate impact accidents:

http://www.riccilaw.com/CM/Breaking%20News/BreakingNews334.asp
As a result of the collision, the Bennett's vehicle spun out of control, veered off the road and rolled over. During the initial impact with McCabe's vehicle, Vickie Bennett's seatback collapsed and the Caravan's passenger side sliding door flew open. When the seatback collapsed, Vickie slid rearwards under her seatbelt and was ejected through the open sliding side door which had come open. She suffered severe - life threatening injuries from the accident. Today, her injuries continue to affect her health and wellbeing.

Attorneys Edward M. Ricci and Theodore J. Leopold, partners in the law firm of Ricci~Leopold, P.A. have successfully settled a suit on behalf of the Bennett's. The settlement was reached with Chrysler and McCabe for an undisclosed sum.

"We contended in this suit that Chrysler's seat design was defective and that Chrysler has known for over 20 years that their seat would catastrophically fail in a low to moderate rear end impact leading to devastating injuries to vehicle occupants." said Leopold.

"Sadly, the Bennett's and most consumers believe that the safety and reliability of a vehicle has been safely designed and tested and will provide protection to occupants in a crash, but all to often this is not true," Leopold added.

http://www.bigclassaction.com/class_action/car_seat_backs.html

Car Seat Back Collapse in Rear End Collisions

Manufacturers of modern cars, in an effort to increase fuel economy and reduce manufacturing costs, have allegedly reduced the weight and strength of the seat back latches on the reclining front seats of modern cars. Unfortunately, this has created a situation in which the seat back can allegedly collapse in the event of a "rear end" collision. When this occurs, the occupant can be ejected from the standard seat belt/shoulder harness, exposing himself and other occupants to possible injury.


http://www.daimlerchryslervehicleproblems.com/

2002 - Beaumont, Texas, driver of Daimler-Chrysler car suffered serious spinal injuries when a defective seat collapsed in relatively minor rear end car accident resulted in confidential settlement by Daimler-Chrysler
http://www.blrlawyers.com/litigation/results.html


The force exerted on a seat back during a rear end collision can be considerable, depending on the speed of the other car and the mass of the occupant. This force can overpower a lightweight seat back latch or recliner mechanism, causing the seat back to collapse backward. When the seat back collapses the driver is suddenly unable to reach the controls or to see the road and can lose control of the car. The driver may even slide out from under his shoulder/lap belts and can bounce around inside the car creating injuries to himself or other occupants or even be completely ejected from the vehicle.


Possible Seat Back Lawsuit
If you or a member of your family has been injured in a motor vehicle accident in which the front seat backs collapsed, you may be entitled to compensation.

The real question is how safe is safe enough. This jury decided Diamler-Chryslers level of safety was too low. Hence all auto manufacturers will need to reasses the probability of a fatality in a similar crash, and improve their vehicals to adequatly reduct the risk.

Everybody knows that cars travel at high speeds, and everybody knows that defective seat designs can greatly exacerbate the injuries of the passengers. Just because DaimlerChrysler knew its passenger seats tended to snap like a Mister Salty thin stick in a front or rear impact crash, obscured the data and hid its research, presented its cars as wholly roadworthy, and denied all liability for their defective design, why, everyone knows that these factors could cause serious injury or death. Caveat emptor, baby!

Dang it. You know, if you're not talking about tobacco, these arguments just seem so silly.

that did in Daimler-Chrysler. Large punitive awards like this are usually the result of showing that the company had a long history of such problems elsewhere and refused to fix it. They probably had other out-of-court settlements in the past related to the seat failures. Also, they have the deepest pockets. The guy that rammed them probably didn't have squat.

Now, of course, some Repuke will use this as another example for the need for "tort reform", while misleading the public about how the legal system actually works. They will make it sound like this one incident and an out of control jury were to blame. The fact is that the median court award has gone down slightly over the last 10 years, NOT adjusted for inflation. Total awards are down also. The system works as well as it ever did (not great, but better than in most places in the world).

Tort reform is yet another example of an issue the Repukes take because it has political capital and then do something not to solve the problem, but to simply grease their big donors with money.

- K