California Appellate Court Reverses Jury Finding Against Suzuki Motor Corporation in Significant Product Liability Trial

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif., Dec. 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In a unanimous decision, the California Court of Appeal reversed a jury verdict that had awarded Plaintiff Joseph Soulliere damages, including punitive damages, for a crash where he claimed the front brake on his GSX-R600 suddenly failed, causing him to suffer serious injuries.

Over a year after the crash, Mr. Soulliere began to blame the front brake master cylinder, when he found out that it was the subject of a Suzuki recall. At trial, Mr. Soulliere told the jury that a vehicle pulled out of a parking lot in front of him and when he applied his front brake it failed, causing him to crash. But the jury did not hear that days after his crash, Mr. Soulliere told the investigating officer that his brakes (plural) locked up, causing the crash.  Brake lock-up is not the recall condition and, in fact, is indicative of a fully functional front brake. The appellate court found that the trial court erred in excluding the investigating officer's key evidence. The Court also found that since Mr. Soulliere did not present evidence that the recall condition even caused his crash, the recall should have been excluded as more prejudicial than probative under California Evidence Code §352.

Suzuki is very pleased with the outcome and agrees with the Court of Appeal that the trial court erred by excluding evidence rebutting Mr. Soulliere's claim.

While Suzuki sympathizes with Mr. Soulliere and anyone in a crash, it believes that Mr. Soulliere's claim was without merit. Suzuki stands by all of its products and looks forward to this case being dismissed.

Suzuki's appellate lawyers were Robert Brundage and Cecilia Wang of Morgan Lewis, and its trial lawyers were Lori Schweitzer of Becherer, Kannett, and Schweitzer, and Kat Carrington of Butler Snow. Suzuki's expert accident reconstructionist was Todd Hoover of Design Research Engineering.

Plaintiffs' appellate lawyers were Robert Simon and Brooke Bove of The Simon Law Group, and his trial attorneys were Gabe Houston of Hodes, Milman, and Liebeck/Houston Law and Tom Feher of The Simon Law Group. At trial, Mr. Houston used Joe Yates for accident reconstruction, Joellen Gill for human factors, DK Global, Inc. for trial graphics, and Advocate Capital, Inc. funded Plaintiff's case.

SOURCE Suzuki Motor Corporation