Driving across a Nevada highway in March 2001, Richard Lee Brown seemingly had little reason to worry about his tires.
His Ford Explorer was among millions that had its Firestone tires removed after a national recall the previous year. But about 55 miles east of Reno, one of Brown’s tires failed.
The steel belt separated from the rubber tread on the right-rear tire, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. When the tread peeled away like the skin from a banana, the tire rapidly deflated, and the sport-utility vehicle went out of control and rolled. Brown was pronounced dead at the scene of massive head and body trauma.
His sons have sued Cooper Tire & Rubber Co., maker of the tires, Ford Motor Co. and others in Los Angeles County, where Brown lived. The lawsuit would be like the hundreds tiremakers have defended, except for one important difference: A California judge has agreed to let the Brown family attorneys suing the tiremaker work with other lawyers who have suits against Cooper.
For Cooper, this could be a dramatic setback. The Findlay, Ohio-based company has had a longtime legal strategy of fighting the release of information in each lawsuit and demanding court orders that prevented the sharing of information.
Now, as a result of the judge’s recent ruling, coordinated lawsuits could expose Cooper to a level of scrutiny no tiremaker has faced since Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. was in the national spotlight in 2000.
At minimum, attorneys in the California lawsuits should have access to mountains of evidence involving allegations of problems with a variety of Cooper tire lines, said Bruce Kaster, a lawyer based in Ocala, Fla., who represents survivors of Laura Castro Barreto, 40, and her son, Daniel, 10. The California pair died after an accident in Arizona in July 2000 when a Cooper tire on their vehicle failed, according to their lawsuit.
Possibly adding to Cooper’s woes: The judge who approved the coordination plan and will rule on what evidence the company has to produce is Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Mohr, who also oversaw a coordination of lawsuits against Bridgestone/Firestone. Because he has experience with the subject of tire failures, he already understands why some documents or other evidence might be relevant, say some attorneys involved in the coordination effort.
The list of those in the coordination could grow.
Seven cases originally were part of this effort, but one has since been settled, said attorney Christine Spagnoli, who represents plaintiffs in four of the remaining six lawsuits. Lawyers involved in five other cases have asked the judge to let them join, and at least eight others could meet the criteria to join, she said.
Company fights strategy
Cooper had opposed coordination. “With this many variables and involving so many parties and attorneys and fact situations, the notion of `coordination’ to increase `efficiency’ is strained,” said Patricia Brown, vice president of communications.
But attorneys contend that coordination will help prevent Cooper from holding back information.
“We know from experience that Cooper doesn’t produce any document–any document–unless it’s compelled by a court,” said Florida attorney Hugh Smith, who is representing Richard Brown’s sons. “And even then, they might not produce it unless the court threatens sanctions.”
The company has a history of fighting attorneys’ efforts to use previously collected evidence as well as evidence gathered in related cases. Even if lawyers know a certain document exists–and may even have a copy–they must wage a new battle with each lawsuit to get access to it. “They’ve insisted that I can’t share information with myself,” Spagnoli said.
Cooper’s spokeswoman counters that some lawyers “use any client’s complaint they file as a mechanism to expand their private or shared litigation databases for future cases.
“This is not an efficient use of a lawsuit, as it places an expense of future litigation on the backs of current clients,” Brown said. “When individual cases are subjected to a process that will add cost and delay, only lawyers win, and both the plaintiffs and the defendants become victimized by the process.”
Cooper’s appeal of the ruling by Mohr was rejected. Its legal strategy was similar to those used by other tiremakers.
Firestone, for example, succeeded for years in masking the extent of tire problems by aggressively blocking release of documents. Tiremakers insisted on sealed court records, gag orders and sometimes closed courtroom trials. For years companies successfully argued that such precautions were necessary to protect trade secrets. But defense attorneys and consumer advocates called it a strategy to keep the public from learning about problems.
It was evidence first gathered in courtrooms–and judges who refused to suppress the information–that revealed the lethal combination of poorly made Firestone ATX and Wilderness tires on the Ford Explorer SUV, a vehicle prone to rollovers.
Cooper is one of the country’s largest tiremakers, but consumers may not even know their vehicle has a Cooper tire. That’s because Cooper not only sells tires under its own name, but also makes private label brands for retailers such as Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Pep Boys.
Judges have found that Cooper has been resistant in several cases to turning over key documents.
In May, a judge in Hinds County, Miss., said Cooper had shown “a blatant disregard of the discovery process of this and other courts.” Cooper had an attitude that it “does not have to provide documents or even the barest information about them unless and until the plaintiffs discover from other sources that they exist,” Judge Bobby R. Delaughter wrote.
Cooper does not agree with Delaughter’s characterizations, and the company appealed his decision ordering the company to produce some information, spokeswoman Brown said. “Cooper Tire has an outstanding reputation for customer satisfaction, and we are committed to total product quality,” she said.
Industry woes persist
Attention was focused on the tire industry three years ago, but problems still exist.
In the wake of the Firestone recall there were congressional hearings and demands from consumers that tires be made safer. But Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said little was ultimately accomplished.
“The federal government has paid very little attention to this issue,” she said.
Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the first overhaul of tire regulations since 1967. Tires must now pass endurance tests at higher speeds and pass tests when underinflated.
Claybrook’s group wanted those changes, but it also wanted much more, including road hazard impact tests, the X-raying of tires after tests to assess internal problems and the providing of information to consumers about the age of tires, since some evidence exists that tires break down with age.
“There are still problems,” Claybrook said.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.
Headquarters: Findlay, Ohio
Employees: 23,000
Net income: $111.8 million last year, up from $18.2 million in 2001.
Other recent lawsuits
June: A Charleston, S.C., man reached a settlement with Cooper for an undisclosed amount. He was left a paraplegic after a 1999 accident that he alleged was caused by a shoddily made tire. Terms of the deal are awaiting judicial approval.
September 2002: A New Jersey judge approved the settlement of a multistate class action by consumers who claimed tires were poorly made. The settlement, valued at $1 billion to $3 billion, calls for a better warranty program, better inspections of finished tires and consumer education.
June 2002: Cooper settled with families in Little Rock, Ark., who alleged a failed tire caused a two-vehicle accident in 1998 that killed four and left two teenage boys confined to wheelchairs. Before the settlement, federal Judge George Howard Jr. had ruled that he would allow evidence to be presented that Cooper employees had destroyed documents that the families believed were relevant to their case. Settlement terms were not released.
