<VV> Which came first, the lawyers or the Corvair?

[Wrsssatty at aol.com]

< I am always intrigued by the good ideas of GM designers that never  
got to market. Usually the accountants are the culprits. Next on the list  
would 
be the lawyers! 
>
 
The latter has been true for several decades now, thanks in large part to  
the Corvair but I don't think it can be said that lawyers had much, if any,  
impact on GM's design of the Corvair at least not the earliest Corvairs 
like the  Rampside.  Until the mid-sixties GM had a very small number of  
attorneys who were in-house counsel and relied upon defense counsel from an  
outside insurance company, Royal Globe Insurance, to defend what few lawsuits  
they faced.  Once the concept of strict liability in tort was applied by  
state courts beginning in California in 1960 things changed, especially after  
Royal Globe settled the Pierini case with disastrous p.r. results.  GM then  
bulked up their in-house counsel department and began defending the Corvair 
 products liability lawsuits themselves rather than rely upon their 
insurance  company's counsel.  BTW, if you don't know who Rose Pierini was let me  
recommend to you the first chapter of a book entitled "Unsafe At Any  Speed."
 
~Bill Stanley