Michigan-based Ford Motor Co. issued one recall and one safety compliance recall on Wednesday, May 25 for its vehicles manufactured in North America.
Included in this recall are around 271,000 2013-2014 model Ford F-150 vehicles. The issue is the defective brake master cylinders, which can cause brake fluid leaks that impairs the effective operation of brakes to the front wheels. The total number of vehicles impacted numbers 270,873, which includes 225,012 vehicles manufactured in the United States; 43,682 vehicles manufactured in Canada; and 402 vehicles manufactured in Mexico. Dealers are expected to replace the brake master cylinder for Ford F-150 owners for free. Brake boosters will also be replaced for free if dealers find leaks from brake master cylinders.
If you were injured in a personal injury accident in Nashville or another area of Tennessee, the attorneys at Pohl & Berk, LLP are here to help you obtain financial compensation from those responsible for your plight. Get in touch with a qualified member of our legal team by calling our offices at 615-277-2765.
Two individuals lost their lives while four others sustained critical injuries during a head-on collision between two vehicles along State Route 136 at Bear Creek Road in Putnam County, Tennessee around 4:30 p.m. last Monday, May 23.
According to preliminary investigations made by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, a Honda CR-V crossed the center line of State Route 136 at Bear Creek Road, causing the CR-V to hit a Chevrolet Impala head-on in the northbound lane of the highway. The driver of the Honda was identified as 21-year-old Joshua Burkett, who was killed in the accident. Burkett’s passenger, identified as 26-year-old Kalya Randolph, sustained injuries and was transported to Cookeville Regional Medical Center for treatment.
The Chevrolet’s occupants were identified as 67-year-old David Maynard, his 66-year-old wife Kathleen Maynard, and two of their children – 15-year-old Nikita and 12-year-old Damon. Kathleen Maynard died in the accident, while the rest of her family was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville to receive treatment for their serious injuries.
Around 500,000 Jeep Wranglers are being recalled by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles due to an airbag issue, with approximately 392,000 of these vehicles located in the United States. The concerns regarding this recall are extremely serious, as it has been discovered that the airbags on the driver’s side of these vehicles might not deploy in the event of an accident.
7,400 2011-2016 Wranglers used for delivering mail have been recalled in the US, as well. These vehicles are different in that they have right-hand drive.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) discovered the defect during investigations, causing the automaker to issue the recall. According to Fiat Chrysler Automakers, because Jeep Wranglers are built and often used for off-roading purposes, dirt accumulated during these excursions could clog the system that activates an airbag deployment in an accident. Luckily, should this occur, an airbag warning light will come on, alerting the driver to the issue.
The automaker has stated that so far, no injuries related to the defect have been reported.
A new study in the latest issue of BMJ, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, shows that most medical errors go unnoticed, especially in official records.
In their study, it was revealed doctors estimate around 251,454 deaths resulting from medical malpractice yearly in the United States.
This statistic is higher than the number released by a 1999 study from the Institute of Medicine, which lists the number of deaths in the 44,000 to 98,000 range, while other studies estimated medical-error related deaths are about 195,000 per year.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General reported in 2008 there had been 180,000 patients who died due to medical error in Medicare patients alone.
Dr. Martin Makary, a professor of surgery and health policy at Johns Hopkins, stated the reason behind the different number of reports on deaths via medical errors is due to the lack of accurate data on these kinds of fatalities.
At Pohl & Berk, LLP, we know how difficult it is for personal injury accident victims to return to their everyday life after experiencing a traumatic incident in Tennessee. Our legal team wishes to restore normalcy in our client’s life by do everything in our power to provide justice and financial compensation via aggressive and compassionate legal representation. Call our offices today at 615-277-2765.
After reviewing three investigations and conducting its own inquiry into the matter, federal safety regulators say they know what causes some Takata airbags to suddenly explode and send metal fragments into the cabin, according to The New York Times. As expected, federal safety regulators say that long-term exposure to humidity and fluctuations in temperature causes the airbag’s propellant to degrade. Over time, this degradation causes the propellant to become unstable and more likely to explode when unnecessary.
In response, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that Takata would be required to initiate the recall of another 35 to 40 million airbags in the United States. This new recall will raise the number of airbags that will have been recalled in the U.S. to around 64 million, making “‘the largest recall in American history,’” according to NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind.
Though Takata eventually began to use a drying agent to better stabilize its airbag propellant, ammonium nitrate, those airbags without it still pose a risk to drivers, even if that risk may not be immediate. Since time is a factor in the degradation of the airbag’s propellant, new vehicles equipped with a defective airbag will not become dangerous for several years. However, every one of these airbags will eventually pose a risk, which is why every airbag without the drying agent will be replaced as part of this most recent recall.
Takata has been given until the end of 2018 to finish recalling vehicles that were equipped with its defective airbag, and until the end of 2019 to recall those newer defective airbags that were installed in other recalls that were initiated in recent years.
Large settlements have been announced in the cases of the families of three Georgia Southern University students who were killed in a tragic truck accident in 2015. The lawsuits named several defendants, such as U.S. Xpress Inc. and John Wayne Johnson, the driver of the big rig that caused the accident.
The tractor-trailer driven by Johnson crashed into the back of Emily Clark’s vehicle, which was siting in traffic due to an earlier collision, on eastbound I-16 at around 5:55 a.m. on April 22, 2015. According to Brandon Peak, a member of the legal team, the driver did everything she possibly could to get out of the way after seeing the truck barreling in her direction. It appears that Johnson likely fell asleep before the accident, because there were no brake marks on the road.
The attorneys at Pohl & Berk, LLP send their condolences to the families of those injured in this accident. Too often, drivers are not held accountable for their actions and the wrongful death that results is tragic.
German automaker Volkswagen recently missed a deadline to appear in U.S. District court, but they were granted an extension until today, April 21, by U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco. This scheduled court date was meant for Volkswagen to present their plan to make VW cars involved in the company’s current emissions scandal compliant with environmental standards. However, if the company is unable to reach an agreement with the U.S. government, VW dealers, and their customers, a trial may take place to determine what Volkswagen owes to consumers and what changes they will need to make.
Finding an affordable option for the company has proved harrowing, as a satisfactory solution goes far beyond fixing the misleading software. Even if the software is updated and brought into compliance with environmental standards, the cars would no longer drive as well, and the ratings promised to buyers would be compromised. Refitting each car in the United States with proper parts and new computer systems is too costly, so a judge at the last hearing recommended that the company simply buy back the cars.
Buying back the cars would hurt Volkswagen financially, an area in which the company is already suffering. Tony German, a New York resident who drives an affected A3 model Audi, would gladly sell his car back to Volkswagen for the right price. His car’s resale value was damaged by the scandal, and buying a new car is an inconvenience. If Volkswagen can pay buyers for the original cost, and maybe an additional sum for the inconvenience, German and many others will likely gladly give up these vehicles.
A teenage driver in Texas was killed on March 31 after the Takata airbag in her 2002 Honda Civic exploded in a minor collision, sending a metal shard into her neck. Sadly, the driver, 17-year-old Huma Hanif, was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash. With this death confirmed by Honda, the number of fatalities linked to dangerous, recalled Takata airbags in Honda vehicles has risen to 11.
Millions of cars with recalled airbags, produced by Takata, are still on the road. These airbags contain a chemical that prevents proper deployment, with many airbags exploding and expelling metal fragments throughout the vehicle’s passenger cabin. While many owners of affected vehicles have already received recall notices, many of these affected vehicles are more than 10 years old and have been sold to multiple owners. So while law makers are cracking down on recalls, many companies have no way of knowing who now owns the recalled cars.
To make matters worse, only about 27 percent of recalled vehicles have been upgraded with a new airbag. Some of the reason for this is that many dealerships do not even have the parts in stock needed to repair the recalled vehicles. For instances, some Honda owners have been informed that the parts necessary to address this recall will not become available until Summer 2016.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has officially filed suit against Volkswagen after the company admitted to cheating on U.S. emissions tests. After outside testing showed that some of VW’s clean diesel vehicles were outputting up to 40x the legal amount of pollutants in the United States, the company admitted to installing devices that were able to cheat emissions tests in as many as 580,000 of their vehicles.
In addition to the 500 existing civil lawsuits against the German automaker, the FTC has filed suit against Volkswagen saying that U.S. consumers have suffered “billions of dollars in injuries” because of the company’s deceptive actions. A Volkswagen spokesperson publicly stated that the company was cooperating with U.S. regulators and will continue to do so.
A federal judge has given VW until April 21st to remedy the situation with consumers by either fixing the vehicles or providing vehicle owners with some sort of financial compensation. No word has been given on the exact solution Volkswagen has been working on, but the company says that a plan is in the works.
In a whistle-blower lawsuit that has been filed by a former Volkswagen employee in Michigan, individuals with the German carmaker have been accused of deleting electronic data not long after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first accused VW of equipping its vehicles with emissions cheating software. The former employee, Daniel Donovan, was an information manager for VW in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
The lawsuit claims that he was wrongfully dismissed last December because it was suspected that he would report VW for destroying electronic data that may have been used as evidence against the automaker by U.S. authorities. The suit goes on to describe how Donovan was instructed by his superiors to tell the chief information officer not to delete electronic data on Sept. 18. According to the lawsuit, the chief information officer was upset by this and that data continued to be deleted until Sept. 21, though the claim also alleges that backup data was being destroyed even after this date.
According to Donovan’s suit, he informed his managers that deleting this data may constitute “obstruction of justice” and that he did not want to engage in the activity. The suit also alleges that outside accountants that were hired by VW complained when they were not able to access all of the information they requested. On Dec. 6, Donovan was formally dismissed from his position, a dismissal that Donovan contends was prompted by the alleged certainty that “‘[Donovan] was about to report the obstruction of justice and spoliation of evidence’” to U.S. authorities. VW maintains that the employee’s dismissal is unrelated to the emissions scandal.
This lawsuit may put even greater pressure on U.S. officials to take a harder line with VW, particularly if Volkswagen cannot find a way to fix the emissions issue for people in the U.S. who own affected vehicles by the March 24—the date on which a federal judge in San Francisco asked the German company to present a plan to solve the problem. As of now, Volkswagen is still negotiating the penalties it will have to pay with the U.S. Justice Department and the EPA for the emissions-cheating software the company equipped in some of its diesel vehicle models.
