Lawsuit Abuse Documentary: Nice Try

[hgc]

No, but they fixed the problem. It was vastly overblown* anyway. I owned a Pinto that was totalled in a rear-end collision and there was no damage other than what would have been expected in such a collision.

*(Perhaps a bad choice of words.)

I hope your assessment of "vastly overblown" is not based on your personal anecdote. That would be bad form, after all. No one ever claimed that the Pinto exploded 100% of the time when being rear-ended.

 

[Stacko]

I hope your assessment of "vastly overblown" is not based on your personal anecdote. That would be bad form, after all. No one ever claimed that the Pinto exploded 100% of the time when being rear-ended.

I just wiki'd this out of curiosity and the Schwartz paper agrees with him.
Cite.

 

[Muldur]

It was vastly overblown* anyway.

There is no such thing as an "overblown" design flaw. They knew it could happen and deliberately did not recall the cars. There should have been jail sentences handed out for that decision.

 

[jj]

There is no such thing as an "overblown" design flaw. They knew it could happen and deliberately did not recall the cars. There should have been jail sentences handed out for that decision.

So, all of the chevies with gas tanks with rear fillers, etc, etc?

 

[Muldur]

So, all of the chevies with gas tanks with rear fillers, etc, etc?

If they possess design flaws, then yes. The Pinto had a design that made it MORE likely to suffer catastrophic failure in the event of a rear collision than other cars. The company knew it and they did nothing to recall the cars to fix it.

That is inexcusable.

 

[sarge]

If they possess design flaws, then yes. The Pinto had a design that made it MORE likely to suffer catastrophic failure in the event of a rear collision than other cars. The company knew it and they did nothing to recall the cars to fix it.

That is inexcusable.

Not exactly.

The Pinto did not have a design that made it more likely than other similar cars to suffer catastrophic failure. The Pinto had a design flaw common to many other cars of the era that made it more likely to suffer catastrophic failure than it would have with a redesign.

 

[Muldur]

Whichever way you want to argue it, the point is the same: the company made a deliberate cold-blooded calculation that allowing people to be killed by a shoddy product and paying off lawsuits later was more cost-effective than doing the right thing and recalling and repairing the product.

That is so self-evidently wrong I don't understand why anyone would quibble the details.

 

[Roadtoad]

Maybe it's just me, but if you have the means to prevent even one death, why wouldn't you? It comes across not merely as cold-blooded, but bordering on sociopathic.

 

[Muldur]

Maybe it's just me, but if you have the means to prevent even one death, why wouldn't you? It comes across not merely as cold-blooded, but bordering on sociopathic.

Corporations ARE sociopathic by nature. They're all but required to be by law, which says their primary duty is to gain profit at all costs so that shareholders receive increased value on their "investment".

 

[progressquest]

Maybe it's just me, but if you have the means to prevent even one death, why wouldn't you? It comes across not merely as cold-blooded, but bordering on sociopathic.

Are you suggesting that car companies should not exist? After all, cars are known to kill people. And if we didn't have cars, then no one would die in a car accident.

No, that can't be it. I must have mis-read your post.

 

[leftysergeant]

The main purpose of tort deform is to reduce the costs to industries when their crap hurts people.

They ddo not deserve such protection. The typical transnational corporation can far better recover from a financial set-back than can a person temporarily disabled by an injury.

Their people, according to the morons who currently run the Supreme Court. They should take their lumps the same way their victims do.

 

[Roadtoad]

Are you suggesting that car companies should not exist? After all, cars are known to kill people. And if we didn't have cars, then no one would die in a car accident.

No, that can't be it. I must have mis-read your post.

You did. Deliberately.

I am saying -- one more time -- that to knowingly not respond to an established danger, to allow a person to die when it was preventable by a simple and inexpensive fix, simply because it was cheaper, is a sociopathic response to a situation. It is the same thing as me deciding to maintain a straight course on a freeway at 60 MPH directly into another car when decency and common sense dictate I turn the wheel.

Have a match for your strawman.

 

[Muldur]

Are you suggesting that car companies should not exist? After all, cars are known to kill people. And if we didn't have cars, then no one would die in a car accident.

No, that can't be it. I must have mis-read your post.

You must have, because neither he, nor I have said any such thing. We are speaking within the context of a deliberate decision by the company that it was more financially beneficial for them to make a shoddy product, knowing that it could and likely would kill people, than to make a proper product.

 

[Roadtoad]

The main purpose of tort deform is to reduce the costs to industries when their crap hurts people.

They do not deserve such protection. The typical transnational corporation can far better recover from a financial set-back than can a person temporarily disabled by an injury.

Their people, according to the morons who currently run the Supreme Court. They should take their lumps the same way their victims do.

What about those who work for transnational corporations?

The whole business of the court is to protect the rights of all citizens. Whether or not they can recover equally isn't part of their purview, nor should it be.

Not all tort reform is about covering a company's well heeled posterior. This gets back to that stupid lawsuit from that idiot judge over a pair of misplaced pants: At what point could this suit have been brought to an end, and the victims in this case kept from having to pay outrageous sums of money to defend themselves? Over a pair of PANTS?!?!

 

[jj]

If they possess design flaws, then yes. The Pinto had a design that made it MORE likely to suffer catastrophic failure in the event of a rear collision than other cars. The company knew it and they did nothing to recall the cars to fix it.

That is inexcusable.

Having seen a few 1966 GM cars with the licence-plate fill location rear-ended, the gas spills, and the results when the gasoline hit the muffler, sorry, the Pinto was in a class of quite a few vehicles. The Pinto got famous for it because it didn't have a rear filler, I suspect.