Georgetown Tire Defect Lawyer
When tire companies put profits over people by making and selling dangerous products, the Georgetown tire defect lawyer at the Stanley Law Group stand up for victims.
It takes a village to raise a child and properly maintain a vehicle. Owners have a duty to inspect their cars and trucks and take care of any obvious problems. They also have a duty to take their cars to mechanics when warning lights come on. Tire manufacturers have responsibilities in this area as well. A vehicle inspection cannot possibly incover a latent (hidden) design or manufacturing flaw. More on that below.
Defective product claims are very complex, mostly because the manufacturer, which is usually an out-of-state conglomerate, has nearly unlimited resources. More on that below as well.
Georgetown Tire Defect Lawyers and Kinds of Defective Tires
Defective tires could injure hundreds of thousands of people. Defective Bridgestone tires on Ford SUVs killed or seriously injured about 700 people in the United States alone between about 1990 and 2000. These tires suffered from two major product defects:
- Design Defect: Some Bridgestone tires almost literally fell apart at the seams. Michelin developed the currently-use steel-belted radial tire design in 1946. Automobiles have advanced by leaps and bounds since then. The 1946 design simply could not support the weight and speed of large and fast modern SUVs.
- Manufacturing Defect: Ford and Firestone/Bridgestone were quick to blame operating temperature, labor difficulties, and pretty much anyone and anything else for the problem. That approach might work in the court of public opinion. But in a court of law, manufacturers are responsible for product safety on the assembly line, during transit, and in pre-retail storage.
The resulting financial windfall for victims couldn’t erase the pain of a wrongful death or catastrophic (life-threatening) injury, but quite frankly, it helped. Ford’s own financial statements indicate that it spent $590 million to settle personal injury and class action lawsuits. Firestone set aside $800 million to handle lawsuits related to the recalled tires.
Procedural Issues
A negligent driver (tortfeasor) might kill or seriously injure two or three people in a single incident. A defective tire might kill or seriously injure two or three thousand people in a single incident.
Understaffed state and federal courts cannot possibly handle all these claims on a piecemeal basis. The resulting mass tort litigation models add another layer to an already complex case.
Sometimes, courts consolidate defective product matters into a single class-action litigation claim. The consolidation rules vary in different jurisdictions. Generally, however, the claims must be too numerous to address individually, the legal issues, mostly the claims and defenses, must be identical in all cases, and a single Georgetown tire defect lawyer must be able to represent the entire class.
Frequently, mass tort claims do not qualify for class action status, usually because the fact patterns are too diverse. In these cases, officials consolidate the claims for pretrial purposes only. In a MDL (Multidistrict Litigation) claim, a single federal judge controls all pretrial matters, such as procedural motions, discovery disputes, and settlement talks.
These mass tort cases often result in very large settlements. Usually, however, the payouts are unequal. Victims who partnered with lawyers early and did most of the heavy lifting receive most of the money. So, if you may be eligible to participate in an emerging MDL claim, like Camp Lejeune Water poisoning, or class action claim, speak to a lawyer immediately.
Connect With a Detail-Oriented Georgetown County Lawyer
Injury victims are entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced Georgetown defective tire lawyer, contact the Stanley Law Group. The sooner you reach out to us, the sooner we start working for you.
