Judge overturns jury's decision in air bag death case.

A federal judge overturned a jury verdict against Chrysler Corp., releasing the company from liability for the death of a five-year-old who was killed by an air bag during a low-speed crash.

In an opinion issued in November, Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York wrote that air bags are "the proverbial mixed blessing," but in this case the critical question before the jury was whether the plaintiffs could show that an alternative design would have been safer for automobile occupants than Chrysler's air bag.

Rakoff found the plaintiffs did not provide enough proof of this. He vacated the December 4, 1998, jury verdict, which found Chrysler Corp. 50 percent liable for Michael Castro's death. Rakoff ordered the clerk to enter a new final judgment in favor of the defendant. Castro's parents, Lyzette Crespo and Jose Liz, were the plaintiffs. (Crespo v. Chrysler Corp., No. 97 Civ. 8246 (JSR), 1999 WL 1054927 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 19, 1999).)

"In sum, plaintiff[s] never undertook to provide the jury with a reasonable means of estimating the number of persons beyond Michael [Castro] whose lives would be saved (or injuries avoided) by design alternatives plaintiff[s] recommended, the number of persons whose lives would be lost (or injuries sustained) by any of plaintiff[s'] proposed alternatives, or a reasonable basis for comparing the two. Without such evidence, the jury was without any reasonable basis on which to conclude that any of the plaintiff[s'] proposed alternatives was safer than the allegedly defective air bag here at issue."

Castro died on August 17,1995, while he was sitting in the front seat of a rented 1995 Dodge Caravan. The minivan, driven by his father, collided head-on with a car on a steeply graded driveway as they returned to Castro's grandmother's house in Puerto Rico.

Castro was not wearing a seat belt when the bag deployed in the low-speed collision. The jury's decision marked the first time that the issue of liability for a child's death from an air bag reached a jury.

"In this case, the judge wanted the specific number of people who would have been saved by air bags if an alternative design was used," said Gary Douglas, the parents' lawyer. Douglas intends to appeal Rakoff's most recent decision on the design defect claim and his dismissal of other claims before and during the trial.

"In a way, [Rakoff's decision] has a silver lining because it compels us to appeal everything," said Douglas, who practices in New York City. Douglas recommends plaintiff attorneys read the Crespo opinion to see what courts will be looking for in future air bag death cases.