LitWatch Spreads Cover On Tyre cases

LitWatch, the litigation news service, is expanding coverage of lawsuits filed in state and federal courts against tyre producers and auto manufacturers. This expanded coverage has been triggered by the demise of the multi-district federal class action, now on appeal to the US Supreme Court. Individual SUV rollover and tire failure cases are now proceeding simultaneously in many separate state and federal courts.

”The federal courts have declined to handle this as one organized case, which means that it’s every plaintiff’s lawyer for himself. This will be the Oklahoma land rush of this decade, with hundreds of cases, seeking billions of dollars in damages, filed throughout the United States,” said John W. Toothman, Editor-in-Chief of LitWatch.

 Toothman notes that “Something unique about these cases is the conflict between the automotive and tire industries, which makes every case a potential land mine for both.”An example of this expanded coverage is the trial transcript from the recently-settled Hernandez case from LA County Superior Court, in California, the first case against both Firestone and Ford to go to trial against both. That case settled in the middle of trial for an undisclosed amount after key testimony was admitted from Jacques Nasser, former Ford CEO, and from another Ford official.

This key information includes admissions that Ford was aware that 6.5 million Firestone tyres were defective and that using a replacement would have cost just 10 cents more per tire..