Steve Knowlton recently achieved a multi-million dollar settlement for our client who was severely burned after an automobile accident in which the car she was driving was struck from behind and exploded. The case was brought in 1998 against a major auto manufacturer alleging that the post collision fuel fed fire (PCFFF) was the result of a defectively designed fuel system. Expert analysis of the wreckage of the car revealed that the gas tank was driven into the drive shaft of the vehicle causing it to split and spill gas, resulting in a fire that claimed the lives of three other passengers and caused severe burns to our client, the driver. After nearly eight years of litigation, the review of over 3 million pages of documents, some of which revealed that the manufacturer clearly knew of the risk of this exact automotive defect, and the review of tens of thousands of hours of crash test videos, the auto manufacturer agreed to settle the case—requiring complete confidentiality.
