ParfumGigi@aol.com

5 février, 2008 19:37

Bud Newman

Daily Business Review

02-05-2008

The parents of a 25-year-old college student killed in a rollover crash asked a West Palm Beach, Fla., jury Monday for $25 million in damages, claiming Mitsubishi was negligent in its Montero Sport seatbelt design and hid the alleged defect.

The automaker's attorney claimed "nothing different" would have happened with a different seatbelt, blaming high speed rather than design factors in the death of Scott Laliberte.

"This case is about the consequences of Mitsubishi's decisions," family attorney W. Hampton Keen said in opening statements. "You can't give them their son back, but you can give them justice."

Keen, an associate with the West Palm Beach firm of Lytal Reiter Clark Fountain & Williams, told jurors the case is about "a series of reckless decisions" made by Mitsubishi about the seatbelt installed in the 2000 Montero Sport. "Mitsubishi was grossly and recklessly negligent."

Attorney David Graves, managing partner of the Minneapolis office of Bowman and Brooke, is one of several lawyers representing Mitsubishi.

"We feel that Mitsubishi is not responsible for the death of Mr. Laliberte," he told jurors. "The fault lies elsewhere, not with Mitsubishi."

Laliberte was attending Palmer College of Chiropractic in Port Orange, Fla., when he died Sept. 25, 2004. He was in the front passenger seat on I-95 in Brevard County, Fla., when the driver lost control and the vehicle flipped several times.

Laliberte was wearing his seatbelt properly, but Mitsubishi's design of the belt used only in the front passenger seat included about 10 inches of extra fabric sewn into the lap portion of the belt. The belt was designed to allow more slack in case of a crash, Keen said.

The seatbelt with the extra fabric was known as an energy absorbent belt and was intentionally designed that way by Mitsubishi, Graves said. The issues in the case include whether the design was flawed and whether the design, even if flawed, caused Laliberte's death.

The product liability trial before Circuit Judge Elizabeth Maass is expected to last several weeks.

Laliberte was partially ejected through the right rear window, and his head was crushed between the car and the ground. He died about four hours later at the hospital.

The driver, whose lap belt did not contain the extra 10 inches of fabric, walked away from the crash with only a minor scrape.

Scott's parents, Donna and Peter Laliberte of Waterville, Maine, sued Mitsubishi, claiming the seatbelt design with the stitched loop of extra fabric was faulty.

Keen claimed Mitsubishi hid the seatbelt flaw from the public and quietly changed the belt design to match the others in the Montero Sport midway through the 2000 model year.

Mitsubishi's manual for the sport utility vehicle warned about rollover dangers and advised occupants to always wear their seatbelts tightly fastened, Keen said.

"Mitsubishi knew that the vehicle rolled over," he told the jury. "Mitsubishi knew that a loose seatbelt was bad. Mitsubishi knew that a declined seatback was bad."

But the carmaker "didn't warn the consumer" about the seatbelt problem and never recalled Monteros over the design. In addition, he said, evidence will show "Mitsubishi never tested their breakaway loop, their 10-inch loop, in a rollover" to know if it was safe.

In 2000, the Montero Sport seatbelt design was used only in the models sold in North America and Puerto Rico. The same vehicle sold elsewhere in the world under the Nativa name used a belt design without the extra 10 inches, Keen said.

Graves focused on the driving of Lynn Agresar, saying the SUV was going about 80 mph when it left the highway.

"Speed is very important," he said. The speed raises the question of whether any automaker could guarantee the safety of passengers, and "we submit the evidence will be no."

Mitsubishi has admitted secretly repairing other defects in its vehicles without recalls, but the judge ruled testimony about other problems and Mitsubishi's product liability cases in Japan would not be permitted in the trial.