Lawyer Responds to Daimler Chrysler Blaming Consumer Lawsuits for Lack of Competitiveness

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas, March 16 -- This press release was issued by David Perry, of Perry and Haas, Corpus Christi.

In a recent speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Daimler Chrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche blamed consumer safety litigation for impeding the American auto industry's competitiveness. Imagine that. A corporate behemoth blaming lawyers for profitability woes. So what else is news.

The news is what Chrysler doesn't say about its role in consumer safety, particularly as it concerns 15-passenger vans used by thousands of church members, high school teams, seniors and others every day.

Our firm settled such a lawsuit against Chrysler in 2003. The case involved the deaths of four women, all members of the First Assembly of God Church in Burkburnett, Texas, and severe injuries, including permanent brain damage, to eight others. They were riding in a Dodge Ram 3500 when one of the tires (original equipment) suddenly lost its tread. The van veered out of control, crossed the median and rolled several times. The 62-year-old driver and three of her passengers were killed.

The Dodge Ram 3500 is a typical 15-passenger van used by churches, public institutions and school districts all over the world. Not once, but twice, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has issued public warnings that these vans become highly unstable and tend to roll during emergency maneuvers.

Our legal discovery showed that the vans, as originally designed by Chrysler, used a rear axle that became overloaded when the van was at its maximum rated capacity of 15 passengers; and that furthermore, such overloading can and did lead to tire failure. In addition, NHTSA testing also showed the vehicle became six times more unstable when fully loaded, and three times more unstable when carrying five or fewer passengers. Yet even after the National Highway Transportation Safety Board warned Chrysler and the public of the instability problem -- twice -- Chrysler did nothing.

I would humbly suggest that Chrysler might consider changing the design of a popular vehicle so that it doesn't become astronomically more dangerous when used as intended a good first step toward being competitive. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of these defectively designed Chrysler vans remain in use by churches and schools who rely on Chrysler's good faith.

Guide One, the nation's largest church insurance company in the United States will no longer issue new policies on 15 passenger vans and urges customers to purchase small school buses as an alternative. According to government reports, 558 people were killed in 388 large van roll-overs in the U.S. between 1990 and 2000. More information is available on this issue at http://www.perryhaas.com/ .

Chairman Zetsche should be pledging to make American automobiles the safest, most efficient and competitive products on the planet rather than evade responsibility for a shameful history of placing profits over customer safety -- and then blaming the economic consequences of that choice on lawyers.

David Perry has been in the practice of law for more than 30 years in Corpus Christi, TX, and is considered one of the nation's best trial lawyers. He recently represented families of eight law enforcement officers killed in fiery crashes of defective Ford Crown Victoria police cars.