FAULTY SEAT COLLAPSES IN CHRYSLER VAN CAUSING DEBILITATING INJURY

 

Brian J. Pappas and Sharon A. Pappas, individually, et al. vs. Chrysler Corporation, a foreign corporation, Alamo Rent-A-Car, Inc., a Florida corporation
17th Circuit, Broward County, Florida

   

Pappas v. Chrysler – Brian Pappas was driving with his wife and three girls in the family’s 1987 Plymouth Voyager when he was struck from behind by another vehicle at a low speed. The seemingly innocuous rear impact, however, caused the driver’s seat that Brian was sitting in to collapse backwards and Brian went with it. In the blink of an eye, before the Plymouth Voyager came to a stop, Brian found himself with his head in the back seat, his hands off the steering wheel and staring straight at the roof. Despite the low speed impact Brian received a debilitating back injury.  An analysis of the driver’s seat in the 1987 Plymouth Voyager revealed that it was poorly designed and incapable of remaining upright in most rear impact collisions. This “hockey stick” like component was used by Chrysler to attach just one side of the seatback to the seat bottom thereby transmitting all of the forces of the accident onto just one side of the seat frame. Because of how this component was attached, it was a seat failure just waiting to happen.

Making matters even worse for Chrysler, our pretrial investigation uncovered a Plymouth Voyager test video of the vehicle getting struck in a rear impact collision and the driver’s seat collapsed backward in the blink of an eye.  Chrysler knew the seat exposed drivers of their vehicles to unnecessary risks of harm in rear impact collisions but did nothing to fix the problem.  Several months before trial, Chrysler voluntarily settled this case for an amount that they insisted remain confidential.