That GM Wheel
Miller, Judith
That GM Wheel JUDITH MILLER The United States v. General Motors may become the trial of the century—literally. The case, now in its seventh year with no end in sight, illustrates the power of...
...Therefore, GM argues, warning letters are not justified...
...The wheel, designed for pickup trucks, delivery vehicles, and campers, has a rather nasty tendency to shatter, scattering fragments about...
...one which, in fact, it stopped manufacturing in 1965, three years before the defect was brought to the attention of the Department of Transportation (DOT...
...Although the wheel has caused several injuries and many accidents, no one has been killed so far...
...After two years of investigation and haggling, the Department accepted GM's offer to send out letters to wheel owners, offering the 50,000 camper customers new wheels at no cost...
...The petition was premised on a new legal theory—that a large number of failures indicated that a product was inherently defective—a concept which GM scornfully denounced as the "numbers" theory...
...After having been publicly chastised by the courts, the Department reevaluated its information and ordered GM to inform its customers that the wheel was inherently defective...
...The case, now in its seventh year with no end in sight, illustrates the power of the giant corporation to thwart even the minimum standards of protection Congress has seen fit to provide the American people...
...In the past seven years, GM has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win its case...
...That GM Wheel JUDITH MILLER The United States v. General Motors may become the trial of the century—literally...
...In effect, the court had accepted the " n u m b e r s " theory...
...General Motors has appealed...
...This case clearly illustrates the need for such an amendment...
...Congress is considering an amendment to the Vehicle Safety Act which would require that interim notification be provided to consumers while corporations and the Government do battle in the...
...Although the Delaware courts threw out GM's suit on jurisdictional grounds, the case sat in the district court for two years without action...
...If GM refused to comply, the company would be fined $400,000...
...District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the compromise letter was unacceptable, since it flew in the face of the Department's own evidence, and ordered GM to reopen the case...
...Nader protested vigorously against DOT's approval of GM's proposed letter...
...General Motors is fighting its tax deductible battle not to prevent an expensive recall, nor even to head off an order requiring the company to provide new wheels for dissatisfied customers, but merely to avoid being directed to send out a letter to the 250,000 owners of the defective wheel, warning them about using it for the purpose for which it was intended...
...If Congress does not act to close this gaping loophole in the Vehicle Safety Act, GM and other auto corporations can continue to fight government regulation through the courts, while consumers of their defective products endanger themselves and others on the nation's highways...
...If Congress rejects a tightening of this consumer protection law, "Blood on the Highways" will, indeed, be the rule...
...In an effort to force the Department to reopen its investigation, Nader and the Center filed suit against DOT in 1970...
...Finally, the Government filed a motion for summary, or immediate, judgment...
...Nader and the Center dubbed GM's argument the "Blood on the Highways" doctrine...
...Judge Joseph C Waddy of the U.S...
...Last June, U.S...
...The Department responded by filing an enforcement action against GM in the District of Columbia, in order to compel GM to send out the letters and pay the fine...
...Court of Appeals, which will hear the case soon, has ordered GM to conduct a survey of current wheel owners, and has instructed the Government and GM to work out some kind of "interim notification" to inform owners of the danger...
...This court," said Gasch, "can not gamble with the lives of truck owners and those other highway users who might be involved in an accident due to a wheel failure, when the record reveals these wheels have failed in large numbers...
...The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 did not require GM to correct the defect nor to provide new wheels, but simply to send out a warning letter...
...The letter implied, however, that the wheel was not inherently defective, that difficulties occurred only when consumers overloaded their campers...
...General Motors has announced it will take the case to the Supreme Court if it loses its current appeal...
...courts...
...Ralph Nader and the Center for Auto Safety first brought the defect to the attention of the DOT in 1968...
...On the very day that the Department issued its new ruling, GM went "forum shopping"—looking for a friendly court to hear its appeal...
...The corporation argued that the Government had to prove its theory of engineering failure, and that the failures must have resulted in a number of injuries and deaths...
...That same day, GM filed suit in Delaware, challenging DOT's ruling...
...District Court Judge Oliver Gasch ruled in favor of the Government...
...The Center staff knew the DOT's own staff had engineering data indicating that the failures were caused by an inherent defect in the wheel's design...
...At issue is the safety of a wheel GM no longer produces...
...In the meantime, the U.S...
Vol. 38 • December 1974 • No. 12
