A lawsuit percolating through the Riverside County courts could knock the auto industry for a spin if a jury buys the argument that stability systems shouldn't have been offered first only to buyers of luxury vehicles.
The suit filed by survivors of two people killed in the 2002 rollover of a Chevrolet Suburban sport utility vehicle argues that General Motors Corp. was negligent in not providing an electronic stability control system on the mainstream SUV model. GM, however, offered the system on its Cadillac Escalade SUV and several luxury cars at the time, including the Chevrolet Corvette and the Cadillac Seville.
Michael Avila, the Los Angeles attorney pressing the case against GM, said that once a safety device is developed, automakers have an obligation to offer it on all their vehicles -- economy models as well as luxury -- without regard for the effect on sales.
"The safety benefits of stability control have been known to auto manufacturers since the mid 1990s," Avila said. "But they delayed implementing because they felt that safety was not marketable, so instead of installing on the SUVs that needed it most because of their rollover problem, they put it on luxury SUVs and cars as a performance item."
The Riverside case is scheduled to go to trial June 11 before Superior Court Judge Gloria Trask. Liability law specialists say a ruling against GM would fuel other suits.
"It may be that this would embolden people to try other cases," said Stephen Sugarman, a civil litigation professor at UC Berkeley's law school.
As it is, several similar suits are pending against various automakers, claiming that they knew about stability control systems but initially limited their use to luxury vehicles. The federal government recently mandated that these systems be installed in all new passenger vehicles starting in the 2012 model year.
Avila maintains in the Riverside suit that GM initially planned to put stability control on the Suburban at the start of the decade but dropped that plan and instead installed it on luxury cars and, in the 2002 model year, on the Cadillac Escalade. Avila said this was done to compete with European automakers Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which were offering it on their upscale cars and SUVs.
The automotive industry has a tradition of testing expensive new safety systems in luxury vehicles first because the buyers of those vehicles are willing to pay extra for such systems.
