A jury decided that the fuel tanks on the 1979 Chevrolet Malibu were placed
too close to the rear bumper. GM rejected a $9 per car fix knowing the
dangers involved with the design. A mother, a family friend, and four
children, ages 6 to 15, all suffered second- and third-degree burns in the
fiery explosion which ensued after this vehicle was struck from behind.

Crash and Burn:
GM Adding Fuel to Fires

The formula for fire is at hand whenever a motor vehicle crashes: leaking gas, oxygen, and a spark to ignite them.  Once ignited, fires in vehicles are particularly deadly, because most passenger compartments are constructed and lined with fast-burning plastics that emit toxic smoke.  Auto engineers have probably known about the problem of crash-ignited fires ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine.  And for decades they have known how to solve it.

Instead of solving the problem, General Motors has spent the past 27 years concealing what it knew from regulators, the courts and the public.  That quarter century of deception and secrecy is now coming to an end.  Courtroom disclosures that have chipped away at GM's wall of secrecy have slowly revealed not only what auto engineers have long known, but also how auto manufacturers weigh the costs of implementing safety designs and the lengths to which they will go to avoid accountability for their safety design decisions.  Angered by these revelations, juries are giving mega-awards to the victims of crash fires, including the largest ever in American jurisprudence, $4.9 billion.

It's estimated 20,600 passenger cars catch fire in crashes each year, killing 1,100 persons and  injuring 3,200 seriously.  GM estimates that between 300 and 500 people a year are killed in fires that erupt in its vehicles when they crash.  That estimate dates from 1973, when it was the first assumption in the now-infamous "Ivey Memo."

History of a Secret

Edward C. Ivey, a mechanical engineer in GM's Oldsmobile division in 1973, prepared his two-page memo to help managers "figure out how much Olds could spend on fuel systems" safety.  Ivey assigned a "value" of $200,000 to each of the up to 500 people who burned to death annually in GM cars, concluding that the deaths cost $2.40 per car on the road.  The callous reasoning:  if GM could install a safer fuel tank for $2.40 per car or less, it stood to save money; anything more meant it was cheaper to pay for the deaths than to save lives.  GM calculated it would cost $8.59 per car to protect fuel tanks in crashes – a net safety "cost" of $6.19 per car to save lives.

Ivey's report was distributed to senior management.  Internal crash test reports showed 16 failures or near failures even after GM told the federal government that its car met the fuel tank standard (see below).  Meanwhile, GM fuel tanks continued to rupture in roadway crashes and turn vehicles into infernos.  In 1980, for example, two children were killed and one severely burned when a new Chevrolet Malibu was rear-ended and exploded in flame.  GM settled out of court and destroyed the car.

Ivey was questioned by a GM defense attorney in 1981 about his memo and its use by GM managers.  The attorney later wrote:  "Obviously Ivey is a not an individual whom we would ever, in any situation, want to be identified to (plaintiffs)…and the documents he generated are undoubtedly some of the potentially most harmful and most damaging were they ever to be produced."

That became bedrock GM policy.  GM managed to hide the lawyer's interview memo until 1998 when a Florida state judge ordered it into evidence.  That case involved two children burned to death in 1991 when a small utility trailer ran into a 1983 Oldsmobile station wagon at low speed and punctured its fuel tank.  Together, the GM documents revealed that Ivey had lied in previous trials about GM's knowledge of fuel tank hazards and the corporation's use of his 1973 cost analysis.  In ordering GM to produce the evidence, the judge wrote:  "This Court advised General Motors that it is not 'big enough to thumb its nose at the court,' and that it is not 'big enough to interfere with the orderly administration of justice,' and that it is not 'big enough to obstruct justice or conceal evidence.'"  The jury awarded the family $33 million.

GM had repeatedly tried–and continues--to quash motions requesting the evidence and to seek protective orders based on claims that the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.

GM's behavior was judged again in 1999 when the same GM documents, now public, were introduced in a California lawsuit over a Christmas Eve 1993 crash in Los Angeles, when a 1979 Malibu was rear-ended and six victims were severely burned, including an 11-year old girl whose hand was burned off and her face, legs and arms scarred for life.  Analysis showed that had the car not burst into flame, injuries would have been limited to two broken legs.  In addition to $107 million in actual damages, the jury hit GM with $4.8 billion in punitive damages, the largest personal injury verdict in history. (The trial judge subsequently reduced the punitive award to $1.09 billion.)

The Unsafety Standard

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration adopted its fuel tank safety standard (FMVSS 301) in 1968 and expanded its coverage in 1975. Its narrow focus seeks to limit fuel spillage in frontal, rear-end, side impact and roll-over collisions involving cars, light trucks and buses, multi-purpose vehicles and school buses.  Testing under the standard is done with a movable crash barrier.  It has serious flaws:

• Tests are done at 20-30 miles per hour, not highway speeds.
• Tests fail to consider real-world crash events, including underride and override and impacts at various angles.
• Tests do not include crashes between higher or lower weight cars.

Tanks That Don't Start Fires

The gas tank that erupted in flames in the 1993 Los Angeles crash was barely 11 inches from the Malibu's back bumper.  Engineers have known for decades how to protect fuel tanks from leaking in most crashes:

• Locate them away from the "crush" zone behind the rear axle.
• Situate them over the car's rear axle and within the vehicle's protective frame
• Keep them away from protruding objects likely to puncture them, or put shields on such objects.
• Install a shield to protect the tanks from crash forces.
• Configure and construct tank filler necks that won't rupture or break from the tank in a crash
• Install safety "check valves" that prevent gasoline from siphoning outof fuel tanks after a crash  (See News Release, March 10, 2000)

Conclusion

If automakers are to be held accountable for their safety design decisions, it is imperative that attorneys who bring lawsuits make every effort to resist secrecy agreements and confidentiality orders.  It is only by insisting that information be brought to light that attorneys can assure that future cases defending consumers' rights to safe vehicles will not be litigated in the dark.

(03/23/00)