``GM Continues to Evade Responsibility for Deadly Fuel Tanks''
2 August 1999
Statement by Lead Counsel Responding to GM Motion to Set Aside Verdict: ``GM Continues to Evade Responsibility for Deadly Fuel Tanks''
LOS ANGELES--July 30, 1999--The following is a statement by Brian J. Panish, of Greene, Broillet, Taylor, Wheeler & Panish, Lead Counsel for the Plaintiffs in "Anderson v. General Motors":"General Motors and its teams of lawyers have filed a frivolous motion to have a jury's unanimous verdict set aside in the case brought by Patricia Anderson, her four children and another passenger who were horribly burned when their 1979 Chevrolet Malibu burst into flames after being hit in a rear-end collision by a driver going 50 mph. GM is asking the court to enter a judgment in favor of the auto maker and to deny the six burn victims any compensation."
According to Panish, "The motion is without merit as GM attempts to retry the case, ignoring the substantial evidence presented at trial establishing that GM put a price tag on human lives when designing the A body fuel system."
1) GM contends that the trial failed to prove that the design didn't work.
"GM's own tests conducted years before the fuel system was manufactured showed that the alternative location of the gas tank would have survived this accident," says Panish.
2) GM says that it showed conscious regard for safety, claiming that the company conducted 50 mph crash tests even though Federal standards did not require such stringent testing.
"GM is lying. No 50 mph crash tests were conducted on this design until crash tests were done specifically for this case. The crash tests failed, showing that the fuel tanks leaked upon impact. GM was caught trying to cover up that fact at trial," says Panish.
3) GM argues that the Chevy Malibu had an exemplary safety record, which was kept out of the trial.
"Instead," says Panish, "GM's claims about the Malibu's safety record were rejected by the jury. In fact, after GM self-certified this vehicle as compliant with government standards, it had 16 crash test failures or incipient failures -- information GM withheld from the Federal government and consumers."
4) GM purports that the infamous Ivey memo, a "value analysis" performed by a GM employee, is a fallacy.
Panish says, "To the contrary: GM and its lawyers have engaged in a 26-year cover-up involving the Ivey memo. The memo, along with numerous other internal documents, proved that GM made safety decisions based on cost analyses that put a price tag on human lives. Tellingly, GM refused to bring Mr. Ivey, a 30-year management employee, to California to testify."
5) Finally, GM calls the jury's punitive damage award -- 200 times more than the largest punitive damage award ever affirmed in the nation -- excessive because the auto maker did not engage in reprehensible conduct.
"Conduct does not get more reprehensible than GM's. There's never been a case in the U.S. in which such overwhelming evidence has been introduced that illustrates the world's largest corporation's reckless and conscious disregard of its consumers. GM wrote off between 300 to 500 lives a year, and allowed thousands more to suffer ghastly burn injuries," says Panish.
"How else do you punish a huge corporation with a daily revenue of $440 million and cash on hand amounting to more that $12 billion?" asks Panish. "Indeed, the $4.8 billion punitive damages leveled against GM constitutes less than two weeks revenue for the corporation. Though no one disagrees that the size of the award is unpalatable, the award is not supposed to be palatable. It's supposed to hurt enough to deter similar conduct in the future."
"GM continues to deny responsibility for its defective product and the horrible consequences for its own consumers," says Panish. "This frivolous motion is an attempt to retry this two-and-a-half month case in 14 pages. What will it take to get GM to accept responsibility and show the respect its past and future customers deserve?"