Defective Products

Re "Bill Shielding Gun Makers From Suits Gains Support," July 27 If your neighbor borrowed your chain saw and cut up his wife, would a lawsuit against you or the manufacturer of the chain saw be reasonable? If someone stole your car and used it to rob a bank, would it be fair to sue you and the carmaker? The answer to these questions is, of course not. Liability suits should be for defective products. Why then should the gun manufacturers be singled out (especially pertinent because they make the guns for our police and military)

Flaws in the development of the newest version of the FA-18 E/F Super Hornet fighter could jeopardize an $8.8-billion Boeing Co. contract to continue early production of the jet, according to a congressional report. The General Accounting Office, the audit arm of Congress, said it identified 84 deficiencies in the FA-18 E/F Super Hornet, the latest version of Boeing's most important military aircraft program.

During a routine test on its Sienna minivan in April 2003, Toyota Motor Corp. engineers discovered that a plastic panel could come loose and cause the gas pedal to stick, potentially making the vehicle accelerate out of control. The automaker redesigned the part and by that June every 2004 model year Sienna off the assembly line came with the new panel. Toyota did not notify tens of thousands of people who had already bought vans with the old panel, however. It wasn't until U.S. safety officials opened an investigation last year that Toyota acknowledged in a letter to regulators that the part could come loose and "lead to unwanted or sudden acceleration."

A jury in Aberdeen, Wash., has awarded damages to nine homeowners who claimed that wood-finish products made by Behr Process Corp. of Santa Ana caused mildew growth on their houses rather than prevented it. Lawyers for the homeowners say thousands of others in western Washington may be eligible to collect similar damages in the wake of the lawsuit. The Grays Harbor County Superior Court jury ordered Behr to pay each of the nine families between $14,000 and $87,000.

Provisions of the auto safety legislation passed by Congress and sent to President Clinton: * Automotive industry officials who withhold information on safety defects could be imprisoned for up to 15 years. * Auto makers and their suppliers must report to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when they learn of deaths or injuries caused by a possible defect and when they recall products in foreign countries.

On a summer day in 1911, Donald MacPherson was driving his Buick runabout to Sarasota Springs, N.Y., when the wooden spokes snapped on a rear wheel, flipping the open car and trapping him under the rear axle. MacPherson suffered a badly lacerated eye and a broken wrist so painful he couldn't grip the tools he needed to ply his craft as a stone cutter. He sued Buick Motor Co., alleging negligence in failing to ensure the wheel was roadworthy. In what would become a landmark ruling in product liability law, the New York Court of Appeals in 1916 awarded MacPherson $5,025 in compensation -- about $115,000 in today's dollars -- and established the automaker's "duty of care" to ensure customers are sold a safe product.

A Claremont company was ordered to pay $6.4 million in damages to the owners of an 80-unit apartment complex here after a jury found substandard construction contributed to its destruction in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, lawyers said Wednesday. Reinforcing Post Tensioning Services Inc. of Claremont must also pay the owners, the Neil and Margo Shekhter Family Trust of Bel-Air, interest and court costs that could hit $2 million according to Steve Zelig, lawyer for the trust.

When some of the world's best-known companies faced disputes over secondhand smoke, toxic waste in the jungle and asbestos, they all turned to the same source for a staunch defense: Exponent Inc. Now that same engineering and consulting firm has been hired by Toyota Motor Corp. as it seeks to fend off claims that sudden acceleration in its vehicles could be caused by problems in its electronic throttle systems. A 56-page report that Menlo Park, Calif.-based Exponent sent to Congress on Feb. 9 found that the system behaved as intended and that Exponent was "unable to induce . . . unintended acceleration or behavior that might be a precursor to such an event."

Ruling in the case of a woman who slipped in a Palm Springs hotel bathtub, the California Supreme Court on Monday overturned a controversial 1985 decision and reduced the liability of landlords for injuries that occur on their property. By a vote of 7-0, the court discarded a hotly contested decision of the court under Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and ruled that landlords should no longer be held responsible under product liability laws for defects on their property that cause injuries.

An Orange County company for years sold an artificial heart valve that was a "walking time bomb," but sealed lawsuit settlements hid the danger, a lawmaker said Wednesday. Now the state Senate wants to sharply restrict the use of sealed settlements to hide defective products, financial fraud or environmental hazards that pose a public threat.