Consider a recently settled wrongful death lawsuit against the Denman Tire Corporation. The plaintiffs also named the tire distributor and the tire dealer as co-defendants in this tragic case. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, who lost their 4-year old daughter as result of a defective tire installed on a Chevy Blazer.
When this accident happened, the owner of the blazer was driving a used vehicle that he had purchased. Two years before the accident, the previous owner had replaced the original tires with three-foot-tall monster tires. The installation of these tires made the vehicle unsafe for city streets because it raised the Blazer's center of gravity by nine inches.
The evidence presented to the court showed that the distributor had known for more than ten years that the tires were unsafe. In addition, the distributor had notified all of its dealers that the tires could make vehicles unstable and possibly cause accidents. Regardless of this, the tire manufacture placed a recommendation stamp maximum inflation of 45 pounds of pressure on the tire, 50% more than the Tire and Rim Association guidelines for this type of tire. At this level of inflation, a tire rupture was almost a given, according to testimony presented in the case. And, in fact, the tire installed on the Chevy Blazer that caused the death of a 4-year-old girl and multiple injuries did rupture!
The day of the accident, the vehicle with the monster tires had a blowout. When the driver lost control of the Blazer, he crossed the median and crashed head-on into the plaintiff's Ford Pinto. She was pinned in her vehicle, with multiple injuries, going in and out of consciousness, while her child struggled to hold onto life in a passenger seat. The little girl was crushed during the impact and she died two days later at the hospital.
The horror of this case is not just the death of an innocent child. The greater tragedy is that the defendants knew that this accident would happen, eventually and did nothing that would have saved this family from the anguish and injuries that they have endured. If you lose a family member or suffer injuries due to defective tires, you must take see an attorney. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to hold the responsible parties accountable.
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