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GM sued after sports car rollover
6/26/2008 11:31 AM By Michelle Massey, Texarkana Bureau
MARSHALL -- While driving a 2007 Saturn Sky, Stephen Slider lost control and hit a concrete culvert, causing the vehicle to roll over.
Although Slider maintains he was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the accident, he states he was injured due to the defective nature of the vehicle. Slider states that the luxury sports car was not "reasonably crashworthy, and was not reasonably fit for unintended, but clearly foreseeable, accidents."
Slider and his wife filed a motor vehicle product liability suit against the car's manufacturer, General Motors Corporation, on June20 in the Marshall Division of the Eastern District of Texas.
The complaint alleges the vehicle was defective due to failure to provide adequate occupant protection in a rollover, insufficient structural integrity of roof rail, failure of the vehicle's rollover protection mounts, lack of pop up roll bars or pop up seats, failure to reinforce high back seats to withstand rollover forces, and failure of the defendant to conduct drop tests or rollover testing.
Further, the plaintiff alleges the vehicle was defective by violating the principles of crashworthiness by the destruction of the survival space and failure of survival space rendering other safety systems ineffective.
The suit seeks more than $75,000 in damages for medical expenses, pain and suffering, extreme emotional distress, mental anguish, impairment, disfigurement, lost wages, diminished earning capacity, interference with daily activities, and reduced capacity to enjoy life.
Slider's wife is seeking additional damages for loss of consortium.
Dallas attorneys E. Todd Tracy and Andrew Counts of the Tracy Firm and Tyler attorneys Matthew B. Flanery and Darren Grant of the Grant and Flanery PC are representing the plaintiffs.
Judge T. John Ward will preside over the litigation.
Case No 2:2008cv00248
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