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By C. Bryson Hull
HOUSTON (Reuters) - The long-running saga of Bridgestone/Firestone tires linked to 203 deaths will finally be aired in court, as the first of more than 100 lawsuits over the recalled tires gets underway in a South Texas federal court Monday.
A 12-member jury seated in the border city of McAllen will hear opening arguments Monday in a suit brought by a South Texas physician whose Firestone-equipped 1998 Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle suffered a blowout and flipped over on a Mexican highway. The March 2000 crash injured all four occupants and left one using a wheelchair for life.
U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela set the stage for a rapid trial for the suit brought by Dr. Joel Rodriguez, indicating in pretrial hearings last week that the proceedings would last about two weeks. He also brokered an agreement Friday in which both sides agreed to limit themselves to testimony from one expert witness apiece about the tire failures.
``The judge is trying to streamline and move this trial along quickly,'' Rodriguez attorney Doug Gwyther said.
Attorneys for Rodriguez originally sued Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., the U.S. unit of Japan's Bridgestone Corp (news - external web site)., Ford Motor Co. and local dealer Weslaco Ford in state court. Ford and its dealer settled the case for an undisclosed sum in July, leaving Bridgestone the sole defendant.
Since Bridgestone is not Texas-based, Vela agreed that the case should be heard in his federal court in McAllen, on the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley.
Lead plaintiff's attorney Mikal Watts said that the trial will produce new facts about the tire's defects.
``Both the Rodriguez family and the plaintiff's lawyers are looking forward to being able to air some of the critical issues that have not gotten out to the public because of the early settlements and the continuing battles between Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone,'' lead plaintiff's lawyer Mikal Watts said.
Bridgestone broadcast its defense strategy last week, saying its lawyers planned to show that the Ford Explorer is more at fault than their tires.
``The important thing to remember is that accidents happen for any number of reasons, and as we move forward in court, we will be showing the jury that there are a number of causal factors related to the accident,'' Bridgestone spokeswoman Jill Bratina said.
Bratina said that the design of the Ford Explorer makes it more likely to roll over in the event of tire blowout.
A YEAR SINCE DEATHS FIRST PROBED
The trial's opening comes roughly a year after the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (news - web sites) (NHTSA) first said it was looking into deaths related to the tires. The investigation, which first looked at 46 deaths, eventually linked 203 deaths and hundreds of injuries to defective Firestone tires.
Most of the accidents involved tire blowouts and tread separations on Ford Explorers. Bridgestone voluntarily recalled 6.5 million Wilderness AT, ATX and ATX II tires in August 2000. The highway agency began probing the tires in May of that year.
The tire recall and safety investigation have made headlines for more than a year, most recently focusing on the increasingly acrimony between Ford and Bridgestone. The tire maker severed its nearly 100-year-old relationship with Ford in May, after publicly trading blame for the blowouts.
In May, Ford announced it would replace all 13 million Firestone Wilderness AT tires on its vehicles, at a total cost some $3 billion, because of what if calls a ``substantial failure risk.''
On Friday, Bridgestone said it had a net loss of $250.3 million for the first half of 2001, largely due to the $570 million charge it took in June to pay for the cost of lawsuit and the recall.