Nevada Supreme Court denies rehearing to Goodyear in wrongful death case

ERJ staff report (TB)

Carson City, Nevada -- Goodyear must pay $32.2 million in liability for an August 2004 rollover accident in which three people were killed and seven others injured, the Nevada Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-1 judgment.

In a Dec. 30 decision, the state high court denied Goodyear a rehearing of the July 1 ruling in which the court upheld a lower court decision finding the Akron-based tyre maker at fault for the blowout of a Goodyear Load Range E tyre on a 15-passenger Ford van on the highway near Moab, Utah. Evertina Tapia, Andres Torres and Frank Enriquez died in the accident; 14-year-old Joseph Enriquez suffered severe brain damage, and six other passengers were injured.

The lower court, accusing Goodyear among other things of withholding documents and creating unnecessary delays, barred the tyre maker from presenting evidence in its defense, and the jury awarded $32.2 million in compensatory damages in February 2007.

Judge Mark Gibbons, the same judge who wrote the original decision upholding the lower court, said Goodyear had no grounds for requesting a rehearing.

“Goodyear argues that (the original ruling) misapplied Nevada law, deprived Goodyear of due process, created an unfair double standard between plaintiffs and defendants, and is against the weight of other jurisdictions' authority,” Judge Gibbons wrote. “We disagree. We followed clear Nevada precedent…Goodyear enjoyed sufficient due process in this matter, and plaintiffs and defendants receive similar treatment for discovery abuses under Nevada law.”

Judge Kristina Pickering dissented from the Dec. 30 decision as she did from the earlier ruling. “The $30 million default judgment in this case rests on the district court choosing to believe one side's lawyers over another's, with no evidentiary hearing, no cross-examination, and a genuine dispute over willfulness, fault and prejudice,” she wrote.

Goodyear could not be reached for comment.

From Tire Business (A Crain publication)