COURT REJECTS SUIT, SAYS DANGERS OF RIDING IN TRUCK'S FLATBED OBVIOUS.

Byline: Bob Egelko Associated Press 

Passengers who get hurt on the flatbed of a pickup truck can't sue the manufacturer because common sense - and a barrage of public safety ads - make the danger obvious, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

``The dangers of riding unrestrained in a moving motor vehicle have become common knowledge and are firmly engraved upon the public consciousness,'' said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in refusing to reinstate a suit by two partially paralyzed passengers.

A lawyer for the two men, both Marines based at Camp Pendleton, said the ruling comes two weeks after a state court in Los Angeles let a virtually identical case go to trial. That court said a jury should decide whether the dangers of riding in the back of a pickup truck were so obvious that no manufacturer's warning was needed.

Attorney Raymond Henke, who also represents the passengers in the Los Angeles case, said he would bring the case to the federal court's attention in asking for a rehearing. The state court has not replied to his request to publish its ruling as a precedent for other courts, an action that might have turned Thursday's ruling around, Henke said.

Mark V. Berry, lawyer for General Motors Corp., the manufacturer in Thursday's case, could not be reached for comment.

A 1993 state law prohibits riding on a pickup truck flatbed or carrying passengers there, but the law was not in effect in April 1992 when the driver of a 1987 GMC Sierra pickup fell asleep and crashed into a palm tree near the Marine base.

Thomas Maneely and Arbalundra Chambliss, who were sleeping in the back, were slammed into the sides of the truck and are now paraplegics.

Their suit against General Motors said the manufacturer should have provided a label warning against riding on the flatbed.

In arguing that such a warning was needed, attorney Henke cited a 1981 National Transportation Safety Board study recounting hundreds of deaths among passengers in the backs of pickups, nearly 70 percent of them age 22 and younger. The report said requiring a warning label might improve safety. In response, U.S. auto makers put warnings in owners' manuals.

Henke also cited Gov. Pete Wilson's veto of a 1991 bill to prohibit riding on pickup flatbeds, two years before he signed the current ban. Henke said the governor's 1991 veto was supported by the California Highway Patrol.

``If Wilson doesn't recognize the dangers in 1991, how can you expect kids to recognize the dangers?'' the lawyer said Thursday.

But the appeals court upheld U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler's decision to dismiss the suit without a trial.

``For years, crash test dummies have been regularly and routinely pulverized by government and private agencies to demonstrate to the public what happens to passengers during automobile wrecks,'' said Judge Stephen Trott in the 3-0 ruling.

``Television periodically subjects us to the disquieting results of these tests, most often in graphic slow motion. Seat belts and relentless `buckle up for safety' campaigns have been with us for decades.''

The public now realizes the danger of riding in car seats without restrains and must be all the more aware of the perils of riding in the cargo bed of a pickup, Trott said.