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$3,350,000 • Unsafe Product

At the age of nineteen, Aris was bright, healthy and energetic. She was also five months pregnant and the mother of a three year old daughter. In the spring of 1999 she made a bold and courageous decision to travel to the United States with all the money she had in the world (a $5,000.00 cash award from the Hurricane George Disaster Relief Fund) in order to build a better life for her young family.

On May 14, 1999, Aris traveled from her hometown in Puerto Rico to JFK Airport where she was to be picked up by family friends to take her by car to the home of an uncle in Syracuse, New York. Her intent was to become fluent in English, complete her education and develop a career. More importantly, she desired to educate her children here in an English language based school system.

In the late evening of May 14, 1999, Aris and her daughter, Samaris, arrived at JFK. A family friend picked them up in his 1980 sedan.

While traveling to Syracuse along Route 80 at a speed estimated between 55 and 65 mph, the Toyota was rear-ended by another private passenger vehicle traveling at approximately 85 mph. As a direct consequence of the placement of the fuel tank location between the rear axle and the rear bumper, unprotected and within the crush zone, the rear of the vehicle literally exploded in flames. The fire starting in the trunk area, fueled by the gasoline and luggage, burned through the rear seat and seat back and into the occupant area of the car engulfing mother and daughter in a growing inferno

Aris suffered physically and psychologically crippling burn injuries. She lost the son that she was carrying. Most horribly, she saw her daughter removed from the inferno severely burned bleeding, and crying out, "Mommy, I am going to die" as her small body became lifeless. Fortunately her daughter was eventually revived but in the aftermath this young mother witnessed the horrific shattering of the young life of her once beautiful and bright three year old, Samaris. Her daughter is now severely brain injured due to hypoxia and shrouded in a mask of dense scars that will never be removed. Because of a potential for conflict of interest, Samaris' claim was represented by another law firm and settled under satisfactory terms based on joint efforts.

To understand why the inferno occurred, MD&L placed focus on the calculated executive decisions of the Defendant Car Manufacturer that took place before Aris was ever born.

According to their own documents, as far back as the 1960's, the Defendants were aware of the dangerously high probability of fuel fed fires on rear-end impact that a behind the rear axle fuel tank design caused. Despite a wealth of information regarding this danger and despite patented alternative designs actually held by the Defendants, they released the 1980 sedan into the marketplace with a fuel tank situated behind the rear bumper, unprotected and within the typical crush zone for rear-end impacts. MD&L demonstrated that the evidences that with knowledge of this unreasonably dangerous design, and the substantial likelihood of catastrophic injury by fire to occupants, in order to protect sales in offering a vehicle with larger cargo space, the Defendants sold this design. The defendants purposely did not disclose the data of the design defect to the public and intentionally did not give any warning to the buyer of the grave danger of fuel fed fires on rear-end impact.