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Defective door latch class action lawsuits name Magna Donnelly
November 6, 2004
A series of class action lawsuits naming Magna Donnelly alleges 4.1 defective door latches on Ford Motor Co. vehicles caused doors to fly open in crashes. The suits also name Ford, Magna International and Intier Automotive, another Magna subsidiary. Magna Donnelly supplied the door latches to Ford, and Intier produced the latches, as well as the latch assemblies in some cases.
Ford reached an undisclosed settlement earlier this year with the family of two Texas sisters after they died from being ejected in a rollover crash of an F-150 pickup. There are another 15 lawsuits with fatal results involving vehicle doors opening in the accidents.
According to the class action lawsuit allegations, the defective door latches are a failure to meet safety standards, which Ford and its suppliers tried to hide from customers. In an article written by two plaintiffs' attorneys in a November 2004 article in Trial magazine, Ford and Donnelly had faced problems with the door spring mechanism on 1997 to 2000 vehicles that "resulted from what Ford alleges was a transcription error on the drawings it had submitted to Donnelly Corp., the outside manufacturer of the door handle spring."
After 2002, Ford required door handles be held under forces 13 times as powerful. The defective door latch problem discovered in spring 2000 led to a recall, which was later reversed when realizing the 11 million defective door latch recall would cost $527 million, according to court documents. The Trial magazine article said that instead, Ford engineers found a crash test standard from the 1960s that allowed the defective door latches to pass, and the recall was canceled.
While Ford continues to maintain the door latches are safe and comply with federal laws, plaintiffs' lawyers say the alternative test is not acceptable to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration standards. Class action lawsuits have been filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Canada and stateside in North Carolina and Florida. Class action lawsuits are also expected in other states, according to the Canada based Magna.For more information on crashworthiness and defective door latches, contact us to confer with an attorney.
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Defective door latch class action lawsuits name Magna Donnelly
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