NRI family
seeks $5 million from Toyota Motor Corp. for faulty seat belt
Stockton, California, November 27, 2007
Jasdev Singh
NRI Raminder Singh, 60, of Woodbridge was killed in January 2003
when he began to pass a slow-moving minivan south of Armstrong Road
and his car skidded off, hit a cherry tree and caught fire. His
son Gurinder "Goldy" Singh, then 14, survived the crash.
In a lawsuit in which a Woodbridge family claims Toyota Motor
Corp. is liable for the death of a man the family said was trapped
by a defective seat belt inside his burning car after a crash.
Gurinder Singh, his mother and two half brothers seek about $5
million in damages for a death they say the car maker could have
prevented by doing more extensive tests of the car's risk for post-crash
fires, and by modifying the 2002 model's rigid seatbelt design.
Gurinder Singh, now 19 said:
- On Monday at a news conference in Stockton that he was able
to unlatch his seat belt and get out, but that neither he nor
his father nor passers-by could free Raminder Singh. He said his
father looked at him as fire consumed the car.
- I just watched my father burn to death.
The family's attorney said:
- A seat belt mechanism in Raminder Singh's 2002 Toyota Corolla
bent on impact, preventing it from being unlatched.
- The belt was unsafe and that Toyota also failed to test the
Corolla adequately for a fire hazard in a crash. When consumers
purchase a car they have a reasonable expectation that the seat
belts will work properly and that they will unlatch in a 40 miles
per hour crash
- From the day our kids are born, we put them in seat belts. We've
been compelled by the law, by newspapers, to put them in seat
belts.
- The seat belt pinned this person in the car to be burned to
death. That's what this case is all about.
Defense lawyer Patrick Becherer told jurors:
- Raminder Singh died after the car experienced "severe
damages" caused when it collided with the cherry tree traveling
between 43 and 50 mph.
- This is a case about responsibility for your actions.
- The evidence will show that this tragic death was unnecessary,
and the crash was caused by the driver's misjudgment.
- Singh died before the fire started. The force of such a crash
is equivalent to falling off a 68-floor building
Toyota in Japan released a statement saying it was "tackling
quality problems as a top priority."
The trial got underway the same day an Alameda County woman's whistle
blower lawsuit became news. A long-term employee at a Toyota-General
Motors plant, she alleges that Toyota superiors demoted her when
she pointed out flaws in various parts of the Corolla, including
seat belts.
————
Now question arise:
- Is the seat belt used in 1.2 million Toyota Corollas across
the United States unsafe, or did it have nothing to do with a
Woodbridge man's death in a 2003 car wreck?
- Did his 2002 Corolla burn because the engine compartment has
a bad design due to limited crash testing, or was he solely at
fault for the crash?
|
