By Zack Needles, From The Legal Intelligencer

A Philadelphia jury awarded $55.3 million to a man who was paralyzed when his head struck the roof of his 1999 Acura Integra as it rolled after a tire blew out.

An examination of PaLaw magazine, an annual review of the legal profession in Pennsylvania, indicates this is the largest reported verdict in a Pennsylvania crashworthiness case since the magazine began tracking data in 1994.

According to the verdict sheet, the jury found that plaintiff Carlos Martinez’s injury was caused by the Integra’s defective seat-belt design and that defendant American Honda Motor Co. was negligent for failing both to redesign the seat belt and to warn consumers that they were at risk for hitting their heads on the roof if the vehicle rolled.

The verdict in Martinez v. American Honda Motor came down in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Shelley Robins New’s courtroom June 26 after a nine-day trial and an hour-and-a-half of deliberation, according to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Stewart J. Eisenberg of Eisenberg Rothweiler Winkler Eisenberg & Jeck in Philadelphia.

According to the verdict sheet, the jury awarded $25 million to Martinez for past and future noneconomic damages, $15 million to his wife, plaintiff Rosa De Los Santos De Martinez, for loss of consortium, about $14.6 million for future medical expenses and about $720,000 for past and future lost earnings.

According to the plaintiffs’ pretrial memorandum, Carlos Martinez was rendered quadriplegic when the tire on his Acura struck a nail, blew a tire and rolled while he was driving in Maryland in May 2010.

While Honda blamed Martinez’s own negligence in its own pretrial memorandum, saying his injuries “were caused by the extreme forces involved in the vehicle veering off the highway, impacting a ditch and then rolling over multiple times,” the plaintiffs’ memorandum said Martinez was traveling at less than 33 miles per hour when his car started to roll over.

The plaintiffs’ accident reconstruction expert, Micky Gilbert, said Martinez was driving below the 55 mph posted speed limit when he ran over a nail he could not have seen and reacted “in an expected manner by trying to turn the vehicle back to the left,” according to the plaintiffs’ memorandum.

Following an assessment of the 1999 Integra’s design and multiple vehicle inspections, the plaintiffs’ automotive design expert, Larry Sicher, found that “the restraint system and overall design of the subject vehicle was defective and unreasonably dangerous, and provided no protection to Mr. Martinez, even though the crash was low-speed,” according to the plaintiffs’ memorandum.

The plaintiffs’ biomechanical engineering expert, Brian Benda, reached a similar conclusion, the plaintiffs’ memorandum said.

IMAGE: Corepics VOF

For much more on this story go to: http://www.thelegalintelligencer.com/id=1202661290319/Honda-Hit-With-55-Mil-Verdict–In-Case-Over-Crashworthiness#ixzz367phFukK