The days of drivers and passengers routinely riding around without wearing seatbelts are long past. Modern consumers understand the importance of seatbelts and other safety systems available in modern cars. Many states have laws requiring drivers and passengers to buckle up. A lot of insurance providers offer discounts to owners whose cars have certain safety systems like antilock brakes and airbags.
For these and many other reasons, consumers have grown to understand the importance of vehicle safety devices and have grown to expect them to perform appropriately. Unfortunately, not all designs are as safe as the could be, and not all vehicles are manufactured as designed. When a car’s safety restraint system fails to perform as expected and fails to restrain a passenger in their seat, that failure may be the result of a design or manufacturing defect.
David Sampedro and Josh Wintle had the opportunity to represent a young woman who suffered injury when the safety restraints of the rear seat she was riding in failed to keep her body in a safe position throughout a crash. Jessica was a rear-seat passenger in an SUV that was involved in a head-on collision. There were three other occupants in the vehicle. The driver and front seat passenger both walked away with scrapes and bruises; they required no medical attention beyond first aid. However, both rear-seat passengers sustained severe, life-threatening injuries including spinal fractures that required surgery.
Following the investigation by accident reconstruction, engineering, and biomechanical experts hired by Panter, Panter & Sampedro to evaluate the cause of Jessica’s injuries, it was determined that Jessica suffered what is known as a submarining injury. That is, the lap belt of her seat belt slid up above her hip bones and into her abdomen during the crash. As it did so, her body folded forward, and the seat belt tore into her internal organs and shattered one of her lumbar vertebrae.
Seat belts are intended and expected to hold an occupant in place. Modern seat belts with a lap belt and shoulder harness accomplish this by applying the majority of the forces in a crash to the hip bones. The crash forces remain localized at the hips so long as the seat belt and seat bottom hold the passenger’s body in place and maintain the angle needed to keep the seat belt below the top ridge of the hips.
Unfortunately for Jessica and the other rear passenger, the seat bottom – a typical bench seat – moved forward during the crash and failed to remain tightly anchored in the position it was intended to stay. This movement of the seat bottom allowed the passengers to slide forward and changed the angle of the lap belt. This movement caused the lap belt to slide up and over Jessica’s hips and into her abdomen with life-altering consequences.
While it may be difficult to reconcile the disparity between the injuries suffered by Jessica and the other rear seat passenger with the scrapes and bruises suffered by the front seat passengers, it is important to understand that vehicle safety regulations treat front and back seat passengers very differently. After years of lobbying by American car manufacturers, Federal regulations were changed. Car manufactures were successful in getting the safety regulations for rear seat passengers relaxed. Car manufacturers are simply no longer held to the same high safety standards for rear seats as they are for front seats.
Nonetheless, car manufacturers have a duty to design and manufacture vehicles that are crashworthy. When the safety systems of a car fail to perform as a reasonable consumer would expect them to, the car manufacturer and distributor may be liable for a design or manufacturing defect.
As a result, David and Josh filed suit against those responsible for Jessica’s injuries. After two unsuccessful mediations, David and Josh were ready to proceed to trial when the car manufacturer refused to accept their final offer. On the eve of trial, attorneys for the car manufacturer reached out to David and Josh through the mediator who had previously impassed the matter to let them know that they would be resolving the case for their last offer. While the money won’t change what happened, it will provide Jessica with the financial security she will need for her future.
