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Case Notes

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
June 29, 2007

Design Defect and Consumer Fraud Claims Viable After Appellate Review

A design defect and consumer fraud claim may be viable where the district court incorrectly instructed the jury on the requirement of the design defect claim and incorrectly held that the consumer fraud claim was subsumed by the product liability claim. Estate of Knoster v. Ford Motor Company, No. 05-3355, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Sept. 6, 2006.

Knoster was killed while a passenger in a 1993 Ford Taurus that accelerated suddenly. The parties disputed the cause of the Taurus' acceleration. The plaintiffs claimed it took off suddenly without the driver having stepped on the gas pedal, i.e., that the electrical engine controls produced a signal that activated the cruise control and opened the throttle without driver input, which would put the pedal to the floor and send the car forward. The plaintiffs produced documents and expert testimony in support of this theory. Ford argued that the plaintiffs' theory was physically impossible. After a jury trial, the jury rendered a verdict for Ford, and the plaintiffs appealed.

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