Defective Tire
Rollover Lawsuits, Fatal Defective Tire
Blow Out Lawsuits, Deadly Defective Tire
Tread Lawsuits, Defective Automobile
Roof Design Lawsuits, and Fatal
Automobile Accident Rollover Lawsuits
by Defective Tire Rollover Automobile
Crash Lawyer Jason S. Coomer
Defective
tire blow out automobile product
liability lawsuits include defective
tire blowout lawsuits, defective tire
rollover lawsuits, tire defect rollover
lawsuits, tire defect blowout lawsuits,
defective tread lawsuits, defective tire
tread lawsuits, and defective rollover
design lawsuits. Unfortunately, tire
defects can cause blowout rollover
accidents that can often be deadly and
kill vehicle occupants including drivers
and passengers.
If you have
lost a loved one in a fatal tire blow
out automobile rollover collision or
have been injured by a tire defect
automobile crash, feel free to
submit an inquiry or
send an e-mail to Texas Defective Tire
Blowout Accident lawyer Jason Coomer.
Fatal Rollover
Crash Defective Design Lawsuits,
Catastrophic Injury Defective Design
Rollover Lawsuits, Fatal Roof Collapse
Defective Design Lawsuits, Catastrophic
Injury Defective Roof Design Lawsuits,
and Automobile Accident Collapsed Roof
Lawsuits (Product Liability Defective
Design Roof Collapse Lawsuits)
Vehicle and Tire
Manufacturers have known for decades
that defective tires and tread defects
can cause a blow out that can result in
a deadly crash or a fatal roll over
accident. This is especially true in
the summer months when paved roads,
streets, and highways can become
extremely hot.
Tire defect lawsuits
are a special subgroup of automotive
products liability lawsuits and fatal
rollover accident lawsuits. This is
because tire defect blow out lawsuits
provide an independent product liability
cause of action against the tire
manufacturer as well as tire replacement
centers. But, if the defective tires are
original equipment on a vehicle, a fatal
or deadly tire blow out lawsuit may also
create a viable defective blowout
lawsuit against the vehicle
manufacturer. The Ford/Firestone
litigation of a few years back brought
the issue of tire defects into the
forefront of public knowledge. Until
then, people did not know a tire could
just fail and blow out in the normal
course of use.
The Ford/Firestone
litigation was based on claims of design
defects in the Firestone tires. The
majority of tire cases before and after
the Ford/Firestone litigation are based
on claims of manufacturing and design
defects that caused catastrophic injury
and fatal blow out tire rollover
accidents. A tire defect, oftentimes
referred to as a tire delamination or
tire detread, usually involves the
bottom layer of steel belts separating
from the second layer of steel belts and
outside tread sometimes causing the
defective tire to come apart and
blowout. When this delamination or
detreading occurs it is common to find a
large strip of tread, and sometimes
accompanying smaller pieces, separating
from the tire while in use. This
separation will often identify a tire
delamination.
A delamination will
significantly decrease a person’s
ability to control the vehicle and will
sometimes result in an accident. It is
common for people to refer to these tire
events as “blowouts.” A blowout is a
sudden loss in air pressure. A tire
delamination does not necessarily entail
the loss of air pressure. Sometimes the
tire will lose the tread but retain its
air pressure through the entire accident
sequence.
After a blowout or
other fatal tire defect accident it is
important to investigate the tires and
their condition to determine if a tire
defect, delamination, or detread was the
cause of action accident or rollover.
Are there large pieces of treads
missing? Do the tires have air pressure
or will they still hold air? How are old
the tires (determined by the DOT
number)? The tire and all tread pieces
should be quickly secured and stored in
a climate controlled area.
Also in investigating
a catastrophic injury or deadly tire
defect accident, it is important to
speak with the occupants of the vehicle
and any potential witness to determine
if a blow out or tire detread occurred.
A classic scenario in a tire
delamination is testimony from
passengers in the vehicle that a loud
banging or slapping noise in the
wheel-well of the tire that failed
occurred immediately before losing
control of the vehicle. This indicates
that the tread was coming off and
hitting the wheel well as the tire
rotated. Also, in investigating a
defective tire crash it is important to
ask the occupants about how the car felt
and acted during and after the tire
event.
In addition to the
products claim against the tire
manufacturer, the prudent defective tire
blow out accident lawyer should also
investigate the possibility of a
negligence claim against the entities
that maintained or installed the tire.
The negligence claim can stem from an
improper tire size, rim size or tire/rim
combination. It can also be based on an
entity’s failure to inform a customer of
signs of impending failure of a tire.
Tire cases are uniquely technical in
terms of the chemistry and other science
involved. These are expert intensive
cases. Only an expert will be able to
make a proper determination on why, and
if, the tire failed. It is therefore
important to have the vehicle and tire
to examine, speak to all important
witnesses, as well as obtain a complete
vehicle history when investigating a
defective tire blow out or detread
accident lawsuit.
Investigating Fatal Tire Defect
Collisions, Deadly Tire Blow Out
Crashes, and Commercial Vehicle Crashes
Typically Requires Preservation of
Evidence and Discovery Requests for
Important Records
Investigating a deadly crash, fatal
collision, catastrophic injury car
wreck, truck collision, or commercial
vehicle accident usually requires
preserving evidence and seeking records
from the police, wreckage yard, black
box experts, trucking company, defendant
driver, truck driver, and insurance
company to determine what caused the
accident. For more information on
preservation of evidence and obtaining
important records & evidence relating to
a fatal, catastrophic injury, defective
airbag, or truck collision, please go to
the following web page
Accident Investigation web page.
Additionally, automobile and car wrecks
that kill people including fatal crashes
and deadly impact collisions commonly
require a lawyer that is familiar in
handling wrongful death lawsuits and
survival action lawsuits. In
thoroughly investigating the death of a
loved one, it is important to understand
the potential different types of
compensation that can be obtained
through the Texas legal system and
insurance policies. Under Texas law
there are two main types of death
actions, there is the wrongful death
claim that is available to the spouse,
parents, and children of a person that
has been wrongfully killed by the
negligent actions of another. There is
also a survival action that passes
through the decedent's estate and allows
the heirs or beneficiaries of a decedent
to seek compensation. The Wrongful
Death Lawsuit seeks money compensation
for the parents, spouse and children of
the decedent based on a variety of
factors including:
- Loss of love, companionship, comfort,
assistance, protection, affection or
care
- Loss of financial support
- Lost benefits, such as insurance,
from the death
- Loss of inheritance from an untimely
death
The survival action lawsuit are claims
for what the decedent would have
recovered had the person survived the
accident. These claims travel through
the decedent's estate and either go to
their heirs or beneficiaries depending
if the person had done any estate
planning. These damages include:
- Expenses associated
with the death including funeral costs
- Medical expenses prior to the death
- Pain and suffering associated with the
untimely death
Feel free to go to
the following web page for more
information on
investigating and pursuing fatal and
deadly crash lawsuits.
Fatal Rollover
Crash Defective Design Lawsuits,
Catastrophic Injury Defective Design
Rollover Lawsuits, Fatal Roof Collapse
Defective Design Lawsuits, Catastrophic
Injury Defective Roof Design Lawsuits,
and Automobile Accident Collapsed Roof
Lawsuits (Product Liability Defective
Design Roof Collapse Lawsuits)
Manufacturers have
known for decades that vehicles roll
over in reasonably foreseeable
accidents. With the rise in popularity
of SUVs and pick-up trucks, the number
of people who are susceptible to
vehicles rolling over has increased
significantly over the last 20 years.
However, in light of the fact that more
people are affected by rollovers, most
vehicle manufacturers have not increased
the strength of the roofs in their SUVs
and pick-ups.
Roof crush, or “loss
of occupant survival space,” creates
many problems for occupants in the
vehicle. First, it rapidly reduces the
space in the vehicle for the occupant.
This will increase the risk that the
occupant will receive a spinal cord
compression injury. Second, roof
deformation does not happen straight
down but rather down and in toward the
occupant. This significantly increases
the likelihood that a properly belted
occupant will be partially ejected out
of the vehicle during the roll sequence.
Typically the force of the roll coupled
with the glass shattering out of the
window, the roof crushing down and
inward and the seatbelt not properly
securing the occupant to the seat will
result in the occupant having his or her
head and/or arm and shoulder out of the
vehicle during the roll. As will be
discussed below, there are other ways to
keep an occupant in the vehicle during a
roll but a roof that stays in place
during a roll reduces the risk of a
person being partially ejected or
receiving a compression injury even
without the other safety measures.
The most common
injuries associated with roof crush are
spinal cord compression injuries and
death. Many automobile manufacturers
have taken the position, especially in
spinal cord compression injury cases,
that the injury was caused by the
occupant “diving” into the roof. The
term “diving” comes from the analogy of
swimming pool diving injuries to
compression injuries sustained in
rollovers. With this defense, the
automobile manufacturers maintain the
injury occurs before the roof crushes in
by the head moving toward the roof until
it can go no further and the weight of
the occupant’s body moving toward the
head until there is such loading on the
neck that a spinal injury occurs.
Vehicle manufactures allege through
testing and expert testimony that when a
vehicle is inverted, the forces of
gravity and the roll sequence will lead
to an occupants head contacting the roof
without any roof crush. They allege that
there is no alternative roof design that
can stop this from happening.
Partial ejections are
also common in rollover accidents
because the roof crushes down and in
toward the occupant. When the roof
crushes down and in, the force of the
roll causes the occupant’s head to get
outside the plane of the vehicle. In a
partial ejection, it is common for an
occupant to hit his or her head against
the ground or pavement or get it caught
between the car and ground during the
roll. Vehicle manufacturers often argue
that no matter the strength of the roof,
a belted occupant can get their head out
of the car during a roll. But if you
keep the roof from deforming more than 3
inches during a rollover, restrained and
contained occupants cannot get their
heads out of the plane of the vehicle
and sustain a catastrophic injury. The
most important series of tests that
address the causal relationship between
occupant injuries and roof deformation
are Malibu I and Malibu II. These were
dolly rollover tests performed with
Chevrolet Malibus (some with production
roofs and others with reinforced roofs
that did not deform during the
rollovers). The vehicles were equipped
with Hybrid III test dummies (in Malibu
I the dummies were unrestrained and in
Malibu II the dummies were properly
belted). Vehicle manufacturers use the
Malibu tests to argue the roof crush
does not actually cause the injury.
The test data
demonstrates, however, that there is a
causative relationship between the
strength of the roof and significant
neck loading. Analysis of the Malibu
testing and other testing that has been
performed by the automotive industry and
others is beyond the scope of this
paper, but it is important for anybody
handling a roof crush case to be
well-versed in all of this testing. When
analyzing a roof crush case, it is
important to analyze the extent of the
roof deformation. This will require
measurements that can be done by a
trained attorney or investigator.
Further, as discussed above, the
accident reconstruction will provide
much information that will allow an
analysis of a roof crush case. Trip
speed, roll velocity, number of rolls,
drop height and the type of roll
(barrel, end over end or football) are
all needed to analyze whether or not a
safer alternative design existed that
would have kept the occupant compartment
space preserved during the roll.
Automobile Accident Defective
Crashworthiness Product Liability
Lawsuits and The Crashworthiness
Doctrine under Texas Law and Federal Law
Defective Automobile
Accident Lawsuit Crashworthiness cases
involve claims that a design defect
caused or enhanced the injuries of a
vehicle’s occupants during an automobile
crash. To identify a crashworthiness
claim, one must examine the interplay
among the circumstances of the accident,
the performance of the vehicle during
the accident, and the injuries suffered.
Such defects may cause a minor injury
automobile collision to become a fatal
automobile collision or cause enhanced
injuries by failing to provide suitable
protection from injury or death in
foreseeable automobile accidents.
Crashworthiness lawsuits have taken many
forms, both in Texas litigation and
throughout state and federal courts.
For more about the
Crashworthiness Doctrine, please go to
the following web page with information
on the
United States Federal and Texas
Crashworthiness Doctrine.
United States
and Texas Catastrophic Injury and Fatal
Tire Defect Crash Lawyers
and Deadly Defective Tire Blowout
Lawyers (Product Liability Defective
Tire Blowout Lawsuits)
As a
Texas Defective Tire Blowout Fatal
Accident Lawyer, Jason Coomer, works on
Texas Fatal Rollover and Defective Tire
Lawsuits involving serious injuries and
fatal automobile collisions all over the
State of Texas and throughout the United
States. In working on Texas Tire Defect
Blowout Accident Law Suits, Jason Coomer
commonly works with other Texas Fatal
Defective Tire Blowout Accident Lawyers
throughout Texas and the United States
including Houston Fatal Defective Tire
Detread Accident Lawyers, Dallas Fatal
Tire Defect Roof Collapse Rollover
Lawyers, El Paso Defective Tire Tread
Crash Lawyers, and San Antonio Defective
Tire Blowout Accident Lawyers. In
working with other Defective Tire Blow
Out Automobile Accident Lawyers, he is
able to more efficiently investigate and
litigate catastrophic injury and fatal
automobile crash and deadly car wreck
lawsuits that are caused by defective
automobile design or parts.
Texas Defective Tire
Blow Out lawyer, Jason S. Coomer, helps
individuals that have been seriously
injured and the families of people that
have been killed as a result of
defective tires, defective treads,
defective rollover design, defective
roof design, and other a unsafe vehicle
crash lawsuits. If you have a question
about a defective air bag or defective
automobile claims,
contact Austin Texas Defective Tire
Blowout Fatal Crash lawyer Jason Coomer. |