Firestone Saving Recalled Tires

INDIANAPOLIS--The Associated Press is reporting that Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. has agreed to retain a certain amount of its recalled and returned tires as possible evidence in lawsuits against the company.

Firestone had been ordered on Nov. 17 by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker to stop shredding the recalled tires until lawyers on both sides could agree on how to save some of them for use as evidence. The recalled tires were being sent to recyclers by nine Firestone distribution centers in the U.S.

A key lawyer in the cases who spoke with the AP said that the deal struck with Firestone is tentative. Victor Diaz, one of the lead counsels for the plaintiffs, said lawyers for both sides hope to reach a final agreement on preserving the tires prior to a scheduled court hearing Dec. 6.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers are trying to prove that defects such as those linked to crashes throughout the country were not limited to the tire models covered by the company’s massive recall.

A Firestone spokeswoman confirmed to the wire service that the two sides had reached a tentative agreement, but she was unable to describe its sxcope.

“The individual tires being recycled were not linked to any specific injury cases and were being shredded as part of Firestone’s normal recycling program,” according to the AP’s account of an interview with the company’s Karen Doyne.

About 160 cases from around the country--many of them involving allegations of injury or death--have been consolidated in federal court in Indianapolis.

Many of the lawsuits allege that Bridgestone/Firestone’s Aug. 9 recall of 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires, most of them used on the Ford Explorer, was not broad enough to include all the supposedly defective models.

Firestone and plaintiffs’ attorneys reached an interim agreement Nov. 21 to set aside two out of every 100 recalled tires as potential evidence. About 20,000 other tires also were being preserved as part of the pact, the AP reported, citing comments from Firestone.

The AP noted that federal authorities are investigating more than 3,500 complaints about the tires, including reports of 119 deaths and more than 500 injuries. Many of the complaints involve sudden tread separation, mostly on Ford Explorer SUVs.