|
Both Sides Declare
Partial Victories In GM Park-To-Reverse Verdict
Lawyers Weekly USA
February 7, 2000
An Arizona jury
recently awarded $14.2 million to the family of a 67-year-old woman who
was run over and killed by her own pickup truck when she stopped to load
a chair onto the vehicle.
According to the
plaintiffs, the woman put her 1987 GMC Sierra half-ton pickup in park
and left it idling while she walked around back to put in the chair. As
she lowered the tailgate, the automatic transmission slipped into
reverse and the truck backed over her. The woman died at the scene.
The primary dispute at
trial was whether the woman, Ruth Golonka, left the transmission in park
or in a position between park and reverse.
In a rather perplexing
verdict, the jury ruled that there was no defect in the truck
transmission, but that GM was negligent for failing to warn customers
that the transmission could spontaneously slip into reverse. The jury
awarded $7 million in compensatory damages and another $10 million in
litigation damages for failing to provide adequate warnings.
Plaintiffs’ attorney
Adam Studnicki says that he learned through post-trial interviews that
there was "a lot of compromising" in the jury room.
The compensatory award
was reduced to $4.2 million based on the jury’s finding that Golonka was
partially to blame for her fatal accident.
The case is now in
post-trial motions. Depending upon the outcome of those motions, GM is
likely to appeal the verdict, according to defense attorney James Condo.
But he noted that the jury’s rejection of the design defect claim was a
significant victory for GM.
Studnicki calls the
verdict a victory for Golonka’s family and for consumers in general. The
verdict puts auto manufacturers on notice that they must abide by the
highest consumer safety standards, he says.
Studnicki says he
doesn’t know yet whether the Dec. 17 verdict will lead to similar claims
against GM.
Since the verdict,
Studnicki has received a call from a woman whose husband was found dead
underneath his GM truck three years ago. Until she saw TV coverage of
the Golonka verdict, the woman did not know what had killed her husband,
Studnicki says. She even wondered whether he had been murdered.
But after hearing about
Golonka’s accident, the woman believes her husband’s truck, like
Golonka’s must have slipped into reverse and run over him, Studnicki
says. The woman is deciding whether to sue GM.
Condo describes the
Golonka case as an "isolated incident" for GM. He does not expect a
flood of similar lawsuits against his client, especially since the jury
found there was no transmission design defect.
Complaints about GM
vehicles - and other manufacturers’ vehicles - shifting from park to
reverse are not a new phenomenon.
In preparation for
trial, the plaintiffs’ team sifted through several thousand GM complaint
forms and other documents. They whittled this pile of records down to
more than 400 complaints and lawsuits involving circumstances similar
enough to Golonka’s accident to be admitted into evidence.
Although most of these
complaints did not result in lawsuits, the plaintiffs’ team uncovered 30
deaths and more than 100 injuries that did lead to litigation. In a case
in Hawaii, a man received $20 million after his GM vehicle backed over
him, rendering him a quadriplegic, Studnicki says.
Studnicki and counsel
Robert Boatman introduced this evidence to show that GM has known about
the transmission problem for nearly 30 years but has chosen not to fix
it, Studnicki explains.
The plaintiffs’
attorneys culled much of the historical information from data that GM
filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the
late 1970s.
The agency was
investigating Ford automobiles for transmissions that slipped from park
into reverse. In the process, it also ordered GM and Chrysler to provide
data on any park-to-reverse issues with their vehicles.
Among the NHTSA records
was a 1974 letter from a GM vehicle owner and shareholder. Studnicki
says the woman wrote the two-page letter directly to the GM president.
She explained that her GM car had shifted itself from park into reverse,
and when she took the car to her mechanic, he told her he had seen the
same problem in at least four other GM vehicles.
The woman wrote that
she believed the problem was a design defect and should be fixed before
someone was killed, according to Studnicki.
The plaintiffs’
attorneys also called 11 GM employees to testify regarding the
transmission design process and the auto manufacturer’s response to
reported park-to-reverse problems. Studnicki says their testimony
revealed that GM knew about the problem but did not redesign the
transmission to prevent it from recurring.
Ron Elwell, a
disgruntled former GM engineer, also testified that he was told in the
1980s not to spend any more money than it took to meet federal safety
standards. According to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Elwell, who worked at
GM for 27 years, became disenchanted with the automaker after learning
that the company had conducted a cost-benefit analysis on saving human
lives verses fixing safety defects.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers
also called expert witnesses who testified that the transmission should
be redesigned and that the owner’s manual for the Sierra pickup truck
contained inadequate warnings about park-to-reverse dangers.
GM also failed to send
a letter to owners warning them of the park-to-reverse dangers, as Ford
did in the late 1970s, Studnicki adds.
Defense experts reached
the opposite conclusions. They testified that the transmission was not
defective, that there were adequate safety features and that the
vehicle’s owner’s manual included adequate warnings.
Condo says he and
co-counsel, Andrew Halaby, also got the plaintiffs’ experts to
acknowledge that Golonka could have prevented her accident if she had
taken any one of the safety measures described in the owner’s manual.
These measures included turning off the ignition, putting on the parking
brake and putting the car in park rather than in a position between park
and reverse.
The defense attorneys
argued that the rarity of park-to-reverse accidents in GM vehicles
supported their contention that the transmission design was not flawed.
Considering the number
of times the owner of a vehicle shifts into park and reverse on any
given day, the problem would have occurred much more frequently in the
Sierra if a design defect were to blame, Condo says.
Likewise, considering
the number of transmissions of this design that are on the road, the
incidence of park-to-reverse accidents would be much higher in the case
of a design defect, he says.
The plaintiffs’
attorneys acknowledge that accidents like Golonka’s are rare. But they
argue that does not mean the GM transmission problem is rare. In most
cases, the problem causes property damage but no personal injuries. And
in the vast majority of incidents, Studnicki adds, no one is standing
behind the vehicle when it shifts into reverse.
The jury sided with the
defense on the design defect claim.
As for the negligence
and failure to warn claims, the defense argued that Golonka was at
fault.
"She didn’t need to
leave the engine running in order to get out of the truck and go around
and load a chair onto the back of the truck," Condo says.
The jury found this
defense argument only partially convincing, as it divided blame between
Golonka and GM.
Plaintiffs’
attorneys:
Adam A. Studnicki and Robert W. Boatman, Gallagher & Kennedy, Phoenix,
Ariz.
Defendant’s
attorneys:
James R. Condo and Andrew F. Halaby, Snell & Wilmer,
Phoenix,
Ariz.
The case:
Maricopa County Superior Court, Arizona, Eugene Golonka v. General
Motors Corporation; Case no. CV98-11010; Judge Daniel A. Barker.
Reprinted with
permission of Lawyers Weekly USA. |
