It does not appear that GMC preserved their challenge of plaintiff’s expert in that case for appeal, or perhaps the case would have come out differently. Certainly, the description of the events, the (loosely summarized) transient electrical fault from some unspecified source theory, and the inability of any party to demonstrate that the cruise control was demonsterably defective after the accident would be a familiar story to readers here.

Brett,
followed your Baker v GM link, the summary makes no mention of a payoff to an engineer. To the contrary, it appears the engineer was laid off/terminated, and had an unrelated (to your firm’s litigation) claim against GM. Doesn’t look like a payoff of a neutral witness to me, but perhaps the decision in that case is more supportive of your allegations. In any event, the GM in that case no longer exists as a going concern, and huge numbers of its employees at that time were laid off or retired. Possibly the new company is different.

Not that discovery abuse doesn’t happen. Even by auto makers. Bentley was recently sanctioned in California, and one of the “H” manufacturers in Washington (Honda or Hyundai, I forget which) last year. Have previously mentioned in these forums.

Simply not as prevalent, in my experience, as advancement of frivoulous claims on dubious theories by certain members of the plaintiff’s bar.

“the standards to which manufacturers are held most often include an element of reasonableness — whether called for directly or merely implied under the law. Again, juries are smart. Juries will not hold a manufacturer accountable for a defect that was impossible to foresee.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…… dude….again, stop it….really….I’m going to have to get a personal injury attorney and sue you for hurting my sides.

Post facto design is all that juries and smart guy plaintiff lawyers do (see your own laughable attempt above), Monday morning quarterbacking at it’s worst and by folks with zero to trivial ability to understand the subtleties of engineering design and trade offs (oh yeah, that’s right, there is NO trade offs in the Lawyer Fantasy World of Designing Products for the Real World).

David hits it spot on the X for Y, Y for X, damned if you do, and damned yet again if you don’t, because Slick Lawyer says you should have done something else entirely. Read the whole thing on laminated glass for side windows versus the current standard of tempered glass. When poor no seat belt Suzie is ejected out the side window, she or other relative sues car maker for not putting in laminated glass. Never mind that tempered glass side windows are safer for the vast majority of folks involved in car wrecks or perhaps driving into a lake / other body of water accidents, or where a car-be-que is getting going with a jammed door after a violent collision, etc. There you go – concrete example of a supposed “defect” that is in fact the best design.

But, Suzie was a pretty young lady, cute long blond curly hair, popular, a really nice girl, newly minted college graduate with a promising future ahead of her, straight as an arrow, gave blood every six weeks (had her 10 gallon pin), worked with needy kids, engaged to the captain of the football team, snuffed out by Greedy Big Auto company that, for only a dollar, could have put laminated glass in the side windows that would have saved her (and killed a few dozen others, but they’re not part of this case, we’ll get around to suing for them later, AFTER Big Auto put’s in laminated glass). Yes….her future earnings would have been millions, and the emotional trauma for Suzie’s Mom and Dad is incomprehensible. Yea…plus the millions in punitive damages. Yeah…tough economics there Brett when you get a 1/3 of 10 to 20 million when you get “justice” for poor Suzie (who really died because, although she was a very nice gal and all, she was fool enough just this one time to not wear her seat belt and to take a turn just a little too fast for conditions, skidded off the road, tires dug into the gravel, and flippy, flippy, flippy). You have to hit that what, once every 3 years to have a pretty decent living there Brett? Or manage a lesser settlement for a nice low 7 figures (insurance limits perhaps) about what, once or twice a year? Yeah, tough economics.

The fundamental problem there Brett, is the lawyer profession doesn’t have to deal with immutable physical reality, you know, of the F=mA kind, or 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, or E=mc^2, stuff you can’t arm wave away. If you file the right paperwork and blah, blah, blah up something convincing to the 12 folks you select, no, cherry pick (and cherry pick to have just the right characteristics you want – just the right bit of gullibility, semi-literacy, innumeracy, etc), you win – period.

Your attempted diversion, to the rules of pleading, ethics, etc claiming these as a restraint is a joke. Most lawyers probably have a bag full of ways to skirt the rules in spirit, all while complying with the rules in letter. Have you actually read much on this site? If so, wow…you’re blind to the shortcomings of some elements of the Lawyer profession, if not, I suggest you start reading. Rules of pleadings…… Oh sure, miss a date and you get smacked, but argue a set of facts or conclusions that has no basis in physical reality and meh….nothing as far as down side consequences.

File, respond, cross complaint, discovery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…all the while bleeding your opponent dry….all because someone hit the gas, not the brakes.

Toyota’s damage control and strategic decisions say virtually nothing about the validity of the underlying complaints. Toyota’s best strategy was to appear to be doing something about the problem to convince people they had fixed a problem that never actually existed. If anything, it shows their justified lack of confidence in the US legal system.

“David – the standards to which manufacturers are held most often include an element of reasonableness — whether called for directly or merely implied under the law. Again, juries are smart. Juries will not hold a manufacturer accountable for a defect that was impossible to foresee.”

That’s not what I said. That someone will press the accelerator instead of the brake is trivial to foresee. That the accelerator might jam or give a false reading is trivial to foresee. That this might even cause an accident is trivial to foresee. It just does not follow that it means there’s anything wrong with the product.

“Toyota has had the means to cure its own liability for this problem since the beginning for less than $1 per vehicle using a brake override system (used for decades by other manufacturers and finally implemented now by Toyota).”

Because it’s not worth $1 per vehicle, except when you include the costs of senseless fear-mongering and an out of control legal system.

Your fundamental misunderstanding of juries, their value and their intelligence is not just concerning, it is sad. Juries – contrary to your assertion – are quite intelligent. Juries are not easily fooled or misled. Indeed, juries come pre-loaded with a great deal of skepticism about plaintiff’s and claims of defect (thanks largely to commentary and sites such as this).

Remember, even Toyota has admitted there is a problem. It recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide, halted production on millions more and has paid more than $30 million in SUA-related fines without appeal or protest.

David – the standards to which manufacturers are held most often include an element of reasonableness — whether called for directly or merely implied under the law. Again, juries are smart. Juries will not hold a manufacturer accountable for a defect that was impossible to foresee.

With respect to Toyota SUA, it appears Toyota has known about the problem since at least 2002 and attempted to cover it up. Toyota’s own internal documents bragged about saving $100 million in avoiding/delaying an earlier recall. Second, Toyota has had the means to cure its own liability for this problem since the beginning for less than $1 per vehicle using a brake override system (used for decades by other manufacturers and finally implemented now by Toyota).

Gang – that ends it for me on this discussion – gotta get back to work.

The main problem is two-fold. First, showing a ‘defect’ and showing it caused an accident doesn’t establish that there was anything *wrong* with the product. “Defect”-free products are impossible and even if they were possible, the costs would wildly exceed the benefits. The real world is filled with subtle trade-offs.

Second, the new changes always introduce new (and usually more likely) failure modes. What is the failure rate for the proposed brake override systems? Brake switches do fail and cause a false positive. Without these override systems, this will just result in a spurious brake light indication. With them, it will mean the car will be unable to operate.

Whatever is the right way to make this complicated decision between implementations, the legal system is *definitely* not it, because (among other reasons) it has no good way to balance the significant interests of non-parties.

All of the identified failure modes are also cured by competent driving. (And, to be fair, competent driving instruction.)

“For a plaintiff’s lawyer to accept a case — particularly a cases against an auto manufacturer — there has to be very good evidence of (1) defect; (2) causation; and (3) injury. ”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha……

Let me correct that for ya: “For a plaintiff’s lawyer to accept a case – particularly a case against an auto manufacturer – there has to be be 1) a sympathetic plaintiff – pretty ladies and children are preferred (2) The ability to articulate some load of BS that may have a passing resemblance to physical reality of car design, but that is so complex and detached from reality, that the jury of lay people, who are mostly innumerate and ignorant of science and engineering principals can be BS’ed into anything, especially if there is no objective, reproducable evidence to prove / disprove my theory (3) That the potential pot of money is so large, that I can play the numbers and roll the dice on it, knowing that if I don’t win this one, the next one will more than make up for it.”

There, fixed your case selection criteria for you.

Occam’s Razor indicates Toyota (and earlier sudden acceleration cases) are user error: Stomp the foot on the gas, not the brake – period. That’s why these “defects” disproportionally happen to the youngest and oldest drivers (hmmm…two groups that may not be the sharpest behind the wheel).

If sudden acceleration was a physical manifestation of the design, the probability of it occurring would be independent of the drivers age / ability / experience / skill instead of having a solid correlation with both youngest and older drivers. Unless that is, the least experienced / least capable drivers put out some “vibes”, EMI, bad karma or what ever that affects the vehicle . If SA were a physical manifestation of the design, it (SA) would also be reliably reproducible in a test environment (apply stimulus that causes SA, get SA, remove stimulus that causes SA, SA ceases).