Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Seat Belt Case May Divide U.S. Supreme Court Over Minimum Standards U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled they may divide, perhaps evenly, in a case involving a Motor Corp. that could open automakers to more consumer lawsuits over vehicle safety.
Hearing arguments today in Washington, several justices hinted they would let accident victims sue even when automakers meet minimum federal standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA. "A minimum by definition gives manufacturers options," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. Others, including Chief Justice John Roberts, suggested they would vote to limit lawsuits and reinforce a 2000 decision that shielded carmakers from some claims. "You have a jury with an injured plaintiff," Roberts said. "They are not likely to weigh heavily the fact that this would cost 3 extra cents per car fleet-wide. I think that is the sort of thing NHTSA considers."

The court might deadlock 4-4 because Elena Kagan, the newest justice, has disqualified herself. As the Obama administration's solicitor general earlier this year, she urged the court to take the case. A tie vote would leave intact a lower court victory for the automakers without setting a national precedent. Protecting Carmakers The auto industry is asking the court to bolster the 2000 decision, which said federal law shields automakers from state law claims that manufacturers didn't move quickly enough to install air bags in the years before they became mandatory in new cars. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, food producers and makers of children's products have weighed in on Mazda's side.

NHTSA, an agency within the Transportation Department, has 59 safety standards that govern automotive components, including windshield wipers, internal trunk releases and seat belts. The standards set performance guidelines that manufacturers must follow.
Justice Stephen Breyer hinted he was inclined to defer to the federal agency, which says its standards shouldn't shield carmakers from suits claiming they didn't do enough to make vehicles as safe as possible. Agency Expertise "Who is most likely to know what 40,000 pages of agency records actually mean and say? People in the agency," Breyer said. "If the government continuously says, 'This is what the agency means' and the agency is telling them, 'Yes, this is what it means,' the chances are they will come to a better, correct conclusion than I will with my law clerks."

Mazda, based in Hiroshima, Japan, was sued by the family of the victim who died in 2002 in Utah as she was riding in a rear aisle seat in the second row of a 1993 MPV minivan. When the minivan was manufactured, seat belts that buckled only over the lap -- without a shoulder harness -- were permitted by law for some back seat passengers. The current regulations took effect in 2007 and require new cars to have shoulder restraints in all forward-facing seats, including rear aisle seats. The victim's van struck a Jeep Wrangler that had become detached from a motor home that was towing it. The collision forced the victim's body to jackknife around her seat belt, causing severe abdominal injuries and internal bleeding, according to the lawsuit filed by her husband.
The lawyer for the family argued that automakers "should be held accountable for the choices they make." The attorney who argued the case for Mazda, said NHTSA "specifically gave manufacturers the option of installing one type of seat belt or the other."

A California state appeals court barred the suit from going forward, ruling it was preempted by federal law. Mazda's U.S. headquarters is in Irvine, California.
The Supreme Court last year, ruling on preemption in a different context, said consumers can sue drug makers for failing to provide adequate safety warnings. The 6-3 ruling said drug companies aren't shielded from suit by the Food and Drug Administration's approval of a treatment and its packaging information.

If you or someone you know has been invovled in an automobile accident involving seatbelt injuries or faulty seatbelt contact Baltimore Injury lawyer or Rockville Injury lawyer, Joseph Ostad at 1(800) 320-0080 for an immediate free initial consultation.

A law firm has filed a lawsuit against the state on behalf of four bicyclists who were severely injured while riding on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) in August 2009. The cyclists suffered everything from severe cases of road rash to concussions, broken bones, punctured lungs, even paralysis. The state agency hired an outside contractor to re-pave a portion of PCH in Malibu near Zuma Beach. The re-paving process was in its initial stages. On the first Friday after the project began, the contractor left the jobsite unprotected, without warning of the danger it posed. Bicyclists riding northbound on PCH encountered an incline without any reasonable notice of what they faced at the bottom of the incline, namely that the road was "...cut away and strewn with loose gravel, rocks, sudden irregularities in elevation, narrowing of the shoulder, ground-up roadway surfaces, cracks and crevices," according to the lawsuit. These conditions "would and did cause said roadway to be unreasonably dangerous and defective for bicyclists who regularly and typically used PCH....". The hazardous conditions remained from Friday through Sunday despite messages left on the states hotline and e-mails sent informing them of the conditions. The governmental agency did not begin to remedy the situation until Monday, explaining that they were closed on Friday due to the state-mandated furlough. "The state did not do their job," says Personal Injury Attorney and avid cyclist who specializes in handling bicycle cases. "Pursuant to policy and directive, they are responsible for issuing warnings about highway construction projects, and they dropped the ball ... big time. Call it oversight, carelessness, stupidity or indifference ... it still comes down to many innocent people being seriously injured." If you or a loved one has been injured from a bicycle accident due to fault of a driver contact me for a free intitial consultation at my Rockville or Baltimore Offices at 1-800-320-0080.

Investors suing the former owner of the biggest U.S. bank to fail, won certification as a class-action case of their suit alleging shoddy lending practices. Investors suing the former owner of the biggest U.S. bank to fail, won certification as a class-action case of their suit alleging shoddy lending practices. Shareholders who lost money on stock purchased from October 2005 to July 2008 can proceed with claims under a single lawsuit, U.S. District Judge ruled Tuesday, according to court documents. The judge appointed a local-based law firm to lead the plaintiffs' case. The lawsuit consolidates more than 20 cases filed against the bank that claim the bank secretly lowered lending standards, artificially inflated home-price appraisals and failed to disclose its deteriorating financial condition when the loans began to fail. An attorney representing the defendants didn't immediately return a voice-mail message seeking comment. The named plaintiffs in the case include a pension plan in Canada, and four other pension groups, according to court documents.
They seek to represent tens of thousands of shareholders who lost money on three types of preferred stock purchased between October 2005 and July 2008 and certain securities offered by the bank in 2006 and 2007. The shareholders argued the case should be granted class-action status because their claims are typical of what other investors experienced and are based on common legal issues. The bank filed for bankruptcy the day after its banking unit was taken over by regulators and sold for $1.9 billion. Before it failed, the bank had more than 2,200 branches and $188 billion in deposits. The judge ruled that a separate federal shareholder lawsuit claiming the bank misled purchasers of $10.8 billion in mortgage-backed securities could proceed. Separately, the bank said the Internal Revenue Service has paid it $4.77 billion of an expected tax refund of up to $5.8 billion. A proposed agreement on dividing that money between the banks and the FDIC requires approval by various parties to the bankruptcy case. If you have been a victim of fraud or misrepresentation in commerical transactions or foreclosure scams contact me at my Rockville or Baltimore offices for a free intial conversation at 1-800-320-0080.