Settlement conferences are scheduled to address the dangers of the Yamaha Rhino ATV and the many product liability lawsuits that have resulted.
The popular off-road vehicle allegedly has design defects that cause riders to suffer serious and sometimes fatal injuries in rollover accidents. Several hundred lawsuits have been filed around the country. They all allege that design problems with the Yamaha Rhino make them prone to rollover. Videos on YouTube show them rolling over at speeds as slow as 15 mph.
Because there are so many lawsuits, they have been centralized for pretrial proceedings as part of multidistrict litigation or MDL. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky is handling the cases which are considered a ‘bellwether’ because they will tell how jurors will respond to evidence in the mounting number of cases brought by product liability litigation. Trials are schedule to begin in October 2010.
Lawyers representing the injured are involved in settlement conference for cases in the MDL. Yamaha contends that its Rhino is safe and useful for off-road ventures when driven responsibly and according to the instruction both in the manual and printed on the vehicle.
Yamaha got a boost when, last August, a jury in Texas state court found that Yamaha was not liable for the death of a 13-year-old boy in a Yamaha Rhino wrongful death lawsuit filed by his parents. The boy was not wearing a helmet, as the manufacturer suggests and the Rhino had been modified. In that case, the Rhino flipped and crushed and killed the boy, which is typical for the types of injuries caused by these dangerous ATVs. #
Source Article: http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/yamaha-rhino-settlement-conferences-7740/
