Word: pintos
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...Ford, for Petersen-and for victory in a Pinto trial...
...Philip Caldwell, 60. The second was for Donald Petersen, 53, who replaced Caldwell as president. The third was for the automaker's acquittal that same day in Winamac, Ind., on unprecedented criminal charges of reckless homicide in the deaths of three teen-age girls in a fiery Pinto crash in 1978. They were the 57th, 58th and 59th people to die in accidents involving the subcompact, which Ford began making...
...stake in the trial was far more than the maximum penalty of $30,000 in fines. Ford's losses in civil suits resulting from Pinto accidents already total millions of dollars. Executives feared that a guilty verdict in Winamac could expose the firm to untold millions of dollars in punitive damages-a penalty above and beyond a plaintiffs actual losses-in the nearly 40 Pinto cases still pending. Little wonder, then, that Ford was reportedly willing to budget $1 million for its defense, which was headed by James Neal, 50, the gravel-voiced Tennessean who was chief prosecutor...
...civil suits involving Pinto crashes, courts have awarded damages as high as $6 million. In the criminal case now being tried, Ford may be fined a maximum of only $30,000 if it is found guilty under the two-year-old Indiana law allowing corporations to be charged with reckless homicide. No jail sentences are threatened because no individual was accused. Yet a guilty verdict could affect the 23 pending civil suits. It could also trigger a rash of criminal charges against other companies involved in product-safety disputes...
...Indiana trial grew out of a 1978 accident involving a 1973 Pinto that was hit from the rear by a van; the Pinto's gas tank burst, flames erupted, and three teen-age girls in the car burned to death. To win his case, Prosecutor Michael Cosentino must prove that 1) the fuel-tank design was extremely dangerous, 2) Ford was aware of that fact but chose not to correct the problem, and 3) the design led to the girls' deaths. The judge is expected to rule this week on the critical question of whether the purported Ford...