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Chrysler loses appeal of $3.2 million accident award

CINCINNATI October 25, 2002; Mary Wisniewski writing for Bloomberg reports that DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Corp. unit lost its appeal of a $3.24 million jury award to the widow of a Kentucky man who was killed after being thrown from his 1992 Dodge Ram pickup.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a lower court properly allowed jurors to hear testimony from accident reconstruction expert Andrew Gilberg, who suggested that the fatality may have been due to a faulty door latch.

Charles Clark was killed in October 1993, after his truck was struck by a Kentucky State Police cruiser. Clark and his passengers weren't wearing seatbelts. Clark was the only one thrown from the vehicle, the court said.

"Mr. Gilberg's opinion that the Dodge Ram K latch system was defective and that it was unreasonably dangerous was based on his technical knowledge with respect to automobile door latch systems," the appellate court found.

Ann Smith, a spokeswoman for Detroit-based Chrysler, said the company is reviewing the decision, and hasn't made a decision whether to appeal.

Smith said that the police car hit the driver's side of Clark's truck at 50 miles per hour, and Chrysler's experts contended that the fatal injuries occurred on impact.

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr., who was sitting on the Cincinnati-based appeals court for the case, wrote the opinion. Circuit Judge Gilbert S. Merritt joined the opinion and Circuit Judge David A. Nelson dissented in part.

Nelson said he wouldn't have upheld the $3 million in punitive damages against Chrysler "for its supposed recklessness in failing to equip the truck with a door latch that would have spared Mr. Clark the inconvenience of buckling his seatbelt."

The case had been tried in London, Kentucky, before U.S. District Judge Jennifer B. Coffman.