Comments on: Driver falls asleep: jury blames Ford to tune of $61M

By: Overlawyered

Overlawyered — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:00:51 +0000

“2005’s Top Ten Jury Verdicts”

The new WSJ Law Blog summarizes (Jan. 16) Lawyers Weekly’s annual compilation of cases. As Lawyers Weekly tells it, the top verdicts this year were both somewhat lower and more closely linked to actual damages…

By: Nathan S. Lord

Nathan S. Lord — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 18:19:13 +0000

So many Americans are extraordinarily generous–with other peoples’ money.

By: Overlawyered

Overlawyered — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:57:23 +0000

Another Florida driver falls asleep

Amazingly, our Nov. 17 report wasn’t even the first time this year a Florida jury held Ford liable for millions because a driver fell asleep. 28-year-old Tami Martin was a passenger in her mother’s Ford…

By: Deoxy

Deoxy — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 11:11:06 +0000

“Why are jurors consistently so stupid?”

With any lawyer worth his pay, stupidity becomes part of the juror job requirement. That’s what lawyers want (easier to manipulate, etc, which makes it into a contest of lawyers to see who is the best juror manipulator instead of a decision of law), and the current jury selection system in this country makes it trivially easy to exclude almost anyone you don’t want.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:26:07 +0000

The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that, if the Explorer handled better, the driver wouldn’t have lost control when he (allegedly) woke up as the vehicle went off the road.

Hall presented evidence that Ford engineers made suggestions on how to make the vehicle handle better—cherry-picking, since even the best vehicles can be designed to handle better and prevent some accidents at the margin. There’s just a tradeoff in doing so. Parker didn’t buy a vehicle that handled as well as a sportscar, presumably because he preferred having the benefits of an SUV, including a vehicle that his friend could recline in.

(By the way, don’t recline in a moving vehicle. It completely defeats the purpose of wearing a seatbelt.)

By: Strider

Strider — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:17:21 +0000

There is something missing here. What do tires have to do with falling asleep at the wheel. Are you saying that the lawyer successfully argued that better tires would have saved the _sleeping_ driver from having an accident?

I’m not saying it’s you leaving something out, but there is some part of this story that we’re not hearing.

By: J.T. Wenting

J.T. Wenting — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 03:11:14 +0000

John, my understanding of the US tort system (IANAL either) is that you can file against anyone for any reason and if you have a decent lawyer stand a good chance to win.
Do NOT file in Germany against Daimler Benz though as it won’t work there.

TOB, the jurors don’t want to set a precedent that such cases cannot be won because they may well have an opportunity to start such a case themselves at some point.
Thus the system is self-perpetuating.

By: The Other Brief

The Other Brief — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:46:25 +0000

Why are jurors consistently so stupid?

By: John

John — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:02:51 +0000

I’m not an attorney, but I have a question. I drive a Dodge Intrepid. I’ve noticed the past few times I’ve fallen asleep and then woke up when I went off the road, I have some steering problems. Can I file a pre-emptive suit vs. Daimler Chrysler? Or do I have to wait till I seriously maim or kill myself or passengers to do so?

By: dweeb

dweeb — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 12:54:49 +0000

About those Explorer stability problems – Car & Driver took an Explorer from the same model year as most of the crashed ones, rigged the same tire as in most of the crashes to blow by remote control, and tested. At 70 mph, after that tire blew, they were able to bring the Explorer to a complete stop in under 400 ft.,under hard braking, without leaving its lane, and WITH BOTH HANDS OFF THE STEERING WHEEL!