<VV> Corvair litigation

[Norman C. Witte]

The discussion of crashworthiness prompted me to look around at cases
available on the web.  I found one in which a guy in a '63 Vair got hit in
the head by the steering column--it evidently did not kill him--and the
appelate court said that the trial court had to consider whether the
steering column possed an "extra" hazard.

http://129.10.155.92/mvhappdfs/larsen.pdf

Larsen v. General Motors Corp., 291 F.2d 495 (8th Cir. 1968).

I suspect by that point in time, plaintiff attorneys sued any time someone
was injured in a Corvair accident.  I think these things tend to snowball;
once people decided the car was unsafe, injuries that were commonplace from
accidents in other makes and models became examples of how the Corvair was a
deathtrap.  I was too young at the time to experience this firsthand and
this is speculation on my part, but given how long the reputation has
reverberated in American culture, and given what those of us who own the
cars know, I would imagined that Nader's complaints snowballed considerably
thanks to the prospects of large personal injury verdicts.

Norm Witte