So how is it Toyota’s fault that the drunken teen crashed the car?
Oh crap, now the company lawyers are going to start forcing them to include breathalyzer interlocks in every vehicle (at OUR cost and OUR inconvenience and OUR cost to maintain). I support the death penalty for stupid jurors.
Reminds me of a jury award. A “photographer” mounted a camera in the rear seat of a small plane, and extended the plane’s controls so he could theoretically operate both the camera and the plane.
He couldn’t do both, and successfully sued the plane manufacturer after the crash.
So she was in the rear middle seat? Must have been, that’s the only seating position that has lacked a shoulder harness for decades.
Were shoulder harnesses for this seating position legally required for a Toyota 4Runner in that model year? No.
Did the lap belt provided perform in preventing her from being ejected through the windshield in a high speed frontal impact? Apparently it did.
At what speed was the drunken teen driver traveling? Not specified but it must have been well above the legal limit.
And, how did plaintiff come to find herself in such a seating position traveling at a high rate of speed with a drunken teen driving the vehicle? She was impaired herself, is the obvious conclusion.
Lastly, what was the male/female mix of the jury? Heavy on female, I’m certain.
The guilty party is the driver. High speed drunken impacts cause injury and death, that’s why they’re illegal. There is no vehicle configuration that is going to prevent that.
why not sue the alcohol company?
due to Toyoto being Big Corp the jury prolly thought it had the magical money tree/
Appeal! Appeal! Appeal!