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CASES & INVESTIGATIONS |
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GENERAL INFORMATION |
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Commentary on the Mraz Case Verdict: "Verdict
Against DaimlerChrysler Can Raise Awareness of
Defect" |
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| [This commentary
on the Mraz case and verdict by Lieff Cabraser
attorney Robert J.
Nelson appeared in the San Francisco Daily
Journal on March 23, 2007. In an earlier article,
a spokesperson for DaimlerChrysler blamed Mr. Mraz
for causing his own death when the vehicle shifted
into reverse.] |
| We appreciate
the Daily Journal's report on
the $55 million verdict against DaimlerChrysler
Corporation recovered by the family
of Richard Mraz in the March 16 edition
of Verdicts and Settlements. |
| The case is
significant because the defect at issue
that caused the death of Mraz affects
over a million vehicles on the road
today, including 1988 to 2003 Dodge
Dakota pickup trucks and 1993-1998
Jeep Grand Cherokees. |
| DaimlerChrysler's
response in the Daily Journal was
to continue to blame Mraz for the accident.
This is precisely the kind of blame
game the jury found an inadequate answer
to a serious public safety threat.
DaimlerChrysler's ongoing indifference
to public safety was what prompted
the jury to find that DaimlerChrysler
acted with malice and with a conscious
disregard for the health and safety
of others. |
| Mraz was not
the first person to die from this defect,
but likely the 13th person. There have
been hundreds of accidents where people
suffered debilitating physical injuries
when the DaimlerChrysler vehicles they
were driving moved into reverse when
the driver believed that he or she
had placed the shift selector of the
vehicle in the park position. |
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| Rather than acknowledge
the fact of the defect, the DaimlerChrysler spokesperson
advised the Daily Journal that DaimlerChrysler's
in-house investigators concluded Mraz exited the
vehicle while it was in reverse and apparently
equated the alleged defect with what turned out
to be false reports of spontaneous acceleration
in Audi vehicles in the 1980s. |
| At trial, the eyewitness
testimony was that Mraz was out of the vehicle
and several feet away from the vehicle when the
vehicle started to move in reverse. The evidence
also showed that if the vehicle had been placed
in reverse, it would have begun to move immediately;
if Mraz had put the vehicle in reverse, there would
be no way Mraz could be out of the vehicle and
several feet away when the vehicle began to move. |
| Plaintiffs showed that
a driver can place the vehicle into what appears
to be the park position and the vehicle remains
stationary for several seconds and sometimes longer
- even after the driver removes his foot from the
brake and exits the vehicle. From this position,
the vehicle can have a dangerous delayed engagement
of powered reverse, and, in the case of Richard
Mraz, the vehicle ran over him once he had exited
the vehicle. |
| The evidence plaintiffs
presented at trial included the fact that DaimlerChrysler
was aware of well over 1,000 park-to-reverse complaints
in several of their vehicles with the same defective
transmission. Further, when DaimlerChrysler finally
determined that it had to do something about the
problem in 2000 because of the ongoing [National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration] investigation
of the Dodge Dakota truck, it engaged in an inexpensive
recall that DaimlerChrysler's engineers knew and
testified would not fix the problem. Indeed, in
addition to finding that the vehicle was defective,
the jury also found that DaimlerChrysler was negligent
in failing to adequately recall or retrofit the
Dodge Dakota that killed Mraz. |
| DaimlerChrysler had 20
years to fix the park-to-reverse transmission defect
in the Dodge Dakota that lead to Mraz's death in
2004. Refusing to act as a responsible corporate
citizen and falsely blaming Mraz for his own death
explains why the jury imposed $50 million in punitive
damages against DaimlerChrysler. |
ROBERT J. NELSON
SAN FRANCISCO |
| Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein,
LLP, is a national law firm of over 50 lawyers with offices in San Francisco,
New York and Nashville. Our attorneys are recognized
for the successful prosecution of lawsuits involving deaths, personal injuries
and property damage due to defective products, including in the field of vehicle
safety. |
| In 2007, in the case
of Mraz
v. DaimlerChrysler, Lieff Cabraser
attorneys, with local co-counsel, obtained
the fourth largest verdict in California for
the year. At trial, plaintiffs showed that
a defective
transmission was responsible for making
a Dodge Dakota pickup shift into reverse and
run over Richard Mraz. |
| Currently, we are
prosecuting personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involving cars, vans,
pickup trucks, SUVs, the Yamaha Rhino and other
vehicles. To learn more about the firm, click
here. |
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| About Lieff Cabraser:
Drivers and passengers injured in auto crashes and pickup truck and SUV rollover
accidents, or families of loved ones who died, may be eligible to file lawsuits
against other drivers at fault or against the manufacturer of their vehicle if
the accident was due to a safety defect. Safety defects can include a high risk
of rolling
over, tire tread
separation, seat
belt failures and other defects. Learn
more... |
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