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Dealers Sell Salvaged Vehicles with Defective Car Parts
April 28, 2008

A new report in the Public Citizen warns of hundreds, if not thousands of accidents that could be just waiting to happen on our country's streets and highways. Unscrupulous dealers are passing off totaled junk with serious auto defects onto unsuspecting customers as second hand cars. The poor shape these cars and trucks are in, the presence of serious auto defects and the lack of safety mechanisms in these vehicles make them prone to dangerous accidents on the roads, and the owners aren't even aware of the problem.

This sale of potentially harmful vehicles has been happening all over the country for a while now. Dealers get hold of vehicles that have been damaged in fires and floods, or have been stolen, and are in a state of disrepair and riddled with auto defects. These vehicles are then given a makeover to look pleasing and new enough to prospective buyers. When the buyer falls for the bait, the buyer has no idea the car has been ravaged by a crash or a fire or flood. The only inkling they have that they have been scammed is when the vehicle begins to spend more time at the service center than on the road. Even then, there is no reason to suspect a scam - until it's time to sell the car. It's only then that the truth comes out.

The list of car defects that these salvaged cars have is long and extensive. Headlights don't work, and seat belts are defective. Plus, there are the many hidden safety car defects that are hidden inside the engine. With the kind of cosmetic alteration that these salvaged cars receive, it's safe to assume that the core of the vehicle is damaged, and unsafe for use on the streets.

The depth of deception and the dangers arising from this are shocking. One Illinois couple took their second hand car to the service center after the husband was involved in a minor accident. Imagine their shock when the service technicians told them that their so-called used car was not even a single car - it was made by welding the bodies of two separate cars! The husband was very lucky to be alive - in a car like that and in an accident, the chances of the body of the vehicle disintegrating are very high.

It's this callous disregard for safety of citizens and the government's apathy in dealing with unscrupulous practices that have led to citizen's rights groups fuming. In 1992, the government approved the setting up of a national database that would make information available to second-hand car buyers about the origins and the background of the car they were considering buying, which would alert them to the prospect of car defects. This would help people make informed choices, it was believed. It's been more than a decade later, and the government has not moved further ahead on the matter. The Justice Department keeps promising to proceed on the subject, but so far there has been no funding made available for the setting up of the database.

This lack of inaction by the government is baffling. In the meantime, we wonder how many cars with defective safety belts, malfunctioning brakes and other such car defects are out on the streets right now.

If you have been injured as the result of a defective car part, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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Jury Awards $5 Million to Family of Baby Killed in Jeep Grand Cherokee Accident
April 15, 2008

For 8 years, August Guillot has carried a horrible guilt in his heart - that he might have unknowingly caused the death of his then unborn child. Now, a jury in Chalmette, Louisiana has given the father the news he had been hoping to hear - that Chrysler, the company that manufactured the SUV that killed his child, was to blame for the accident.

In May 1999, August was getting ready to drive his wife Juli to the hospital. Juli was due to give birth to their son. Their three-year-old daughter Madison was strapped into the car seat. Juli suddenly remembered she had to go back into the house to pick up something, and got out of the Jeep. August meanwhile set the SUV in park, and got out to retrieve his cell phone from the back seat. At that point, just a few seconds after August had stepped out of the Cherokee, the vehicle suddenly power reversed. It pinned Juli against a brick pillar.

The trauma of the accident was severe enough to rupture Juli's uterus and push the baby into her abdominal cavity. She was rushed for an emergency C -section and the baby boy, named Colin, was delivered. He had suffered extensive brain injures, and had suffered from lack of oxygen during the time that his mother had been pinned between the car and the pillar. Colin was taken off life support two-and-a-half-weeks after he was born.

At the time, August believed that he had been responsible for the horrible tragedy. He believed that he had gotten out of the Jeep after putting it in reverse, and not in park. How else, he figured, could the vehicle have suddenly gone into reverse? The local sheriff's office investigated him for criminal negligence. A grand jury, however, declined to bring a negligent homicide charge against him.

Chrysler sent an investigator of its own to look into the causes of the tragedy. It now appears that the company had been aware of a defect in its transmission that caused the vehicle to move from park to reverse automatically. The company did not inform Guillot nor law enforcement agencies about this defect.

Unaware of all this, August continued to blame himself for his son's death. That is until a Los Angeles Times reporter who was investigating Chrysler vehicle defects got in touch with him to inform him that another such "roll back" had occurred with another Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicle earlier.

The couple filed a lawsuit against Chrysler, alleging that the company had denied hundreds of complaints with its vehicle. The jury has come back with a $5 million verdict against the company for the death of Colin Guillot, injuries suffered by Juli, August and Madison.

At the trial, it came to light that at least 200 complaints had been received regarding the problem, but the company had not seen fit to warn drivers. Had the defect been rectified much earlier, it's possible the Guillots today would have remained a family of four.

If you or a loved one have been injured or killed due to a defective car part on a dangerous SUV model, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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Mitsubishi to Pay Family of Accident Victim $11 Million
March 03, 2008

Mitsubishi Motors has been ordered by a jury to pay $11 million as compensatory damages to the family of a young man who died in a accident involving the company's Montero SUV.

The victim, Scott LaLiberte, was a 25-year-old chiropractic student. On the day of the accident, Scott was riding his friend's SUV on I- 95 near Daytona Beach, Florida when the driver lost control. The SUV rolled over. Scott was wearing the Montero's newly designed seatbelts with slack. Even with his seatbelt on, Scott was catapulted towards the back and ejected from the rear window. He suffered a severe head injury and died from the impact. His friend walked away unhurt.

His parents, Donna and Peter LaLiberte, filed a lawsuit that alleged that Mitsubishi went ahead and put its Montero SUV on the market, all the time fully aware that there were serious defects in it. Not only that, the company, after it found about the problems, released a new model of the vehicle in 2000 without ordering a recall or even making it known that there could be any defects in the previous model.

Such behavior isn't all that surprising coming from Mitsubishi. This is the once iconic company that has found itself being entangled in its own web of deceit and lies. In 2000 the scandal that erupted had company executives at the highest level openly admitting that they had hidden defects in their vehicles for decades. It seems to have been some sort of policy at the company and everyone was in on the secret. Those who knew were reportedly threatened to keep the silence about sordid goings on at the company. Reports of dozens of accidents involving its vehicles were ignored by the company that made no effort to recall any of them or even admit that there could be anything wrong.

Such corruption and deceit is what has resulted in the death of Scott LaLiberte. Lawyers for Mitsubishi reportedly tried every trick to pin blame for Scott's death on the speed of the car and other factors. The jury obviously didn't buy it for a second. The Laliberte's lawyers also pointed to the fact that the front seat reclined at the time of the impact, throwing Scott out of the rear window. The reclining seat combined with the defective seatbelt design were together responsible for Scott's death, attorneys argued. As soon as Mitsubishi found out about the flawed seatbelts in its models, it did what it normally did in such times of crises - it swept the messy car under the carpet and went right ahead and introduced a newer model - without the flawed seatbelt - and left thousands of customers who had already purchased the earlier flawed seatbelt carrying models to fend for themselves. There was not a word of caution and no warning at all given to drivers.

The Laliberte's attorney was right when he said only money speaks in corporate America. The family had earlier demanded a settlement of $26 million, and it was argued that a hefty settlement could be the only thing that could strike unscrupulous automakers where it hurts - their balance sheet. With Mitsubishi's admission of letting defective vehicles roll out of shop floors, we can expect more such cases to come up in future.

If you have been injured by a defective car part, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury law firm. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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More Trouble for Mitsubishi
February 04, 2008

It hasn't been a good decade for Mitsubishi. Once one of Japan's foremost auto makers, the company has never really managed to emerge from the scandal that erupted in 2000 when it was revealed that management at the top level knew about defects in their vehicles, but went ahead with secret repairs without asking for proper recalls. Dozens of accidents were reported, but were ignored by top brass.

Now, a new lawsuit goes to trial in Florida alleging that the automaker neglected a seat belt defect in its vehicles that led to the death of a 25-year-old man. The family of Scott Laliberte, a 25-year-old college student, has filed the lawsuit, and it seems Mitsubishi's troubles are far from over.

In September 2004, Scott was in the passenger seat of a 2001 Montero SUV when the vehicle lost control and rolled over. Scott's seatbelt was designed to introduce 10 inches of slack during an accident, the lawsuit claims. Despite wearing a seatbelt, Scott was ejected out of the passenger seat window and his head was crushed between the vehicle and the ground. The driver of the SUV walked away uninjured -he too was wearing a seatbelt, but one which was designed to give less slack.

Scotts' family says his death was caused by manufacturing and design defects in the vehicle. Mitsubishi is expected to fight these allegations, but it won't be easy. Just last month, former Mitsubishi president Katsuhiko Kawasoe was found guilty of professional negligence in a case involving a man who died when the clutch system in his Mitsubishi malfunctioned causing the brakes to fail. Also last month, two Mitsubishi workers were found guilty of causing a woman's death when a wheel rolling off a company truck crushed her.

With so many recent examples of gross negligence still fresh, Mitsubishi is going to have a hard time getting anybody to buy their version of events. Unlike Ford, which is used to customers filing lawsuits all over the place, Japanese companies aren't used to the idea of a product liability lawsuit. Product liability lawsuits are not common in Japan, and damages are usually quite limited.

Mitsubishi, whose US unit has also been named in the lawsuit, might be in for a rude lesson on product liability through the lawsuit.

If you or a loved-one has been injured or killed by a defective car part, you need the help of an aggressive California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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