Hipolito Sanchez v. Amercian Hondo Motor Company

Pls. brought suit in the 197th State District Court in Cameron County, Texas. cause # 95-05-2657-C and commenced the trial on Feb. 17 of 1997. The C/A included neg./Products Liability/ and Gross Negligence. The Child was 10 at the time of his death and was riding alone on a country road near Matamoros, Mexico. He was riding a Honda three-wheel all terrain vehicle model 1982 200E ( known as the Big Red and had a history of deaths and injuries associated with it's operation). The death happend on Feb. 19, 1995. It was shown that the death occured at a speed below 20 mph with a loss of control and the vehicle turing over causing head and neck injury.

Pls. alleged that failure to warn of dangers, design defects, and defective marketing were producing causes of the minor's death.Plts introduced into evidence the fact that in January of 1988, Hondo issued their own ATV (three-wheeler) that states: "The Consuner Product Safety Commission has concluded that atvs may present a risk of death or sever injury in certain circumstances." Also presented to the jury were statistics that from 1981 through the end of 1990,there had been a total of 529,000 injuries associated with three-wheelers serious enough to require emergency room treatment. And 1,797deaths were reported from 1982 and 1990. Design defects shown were:solid rear axle(no differential);dangerous high center of gravity;too large ballon-like tires; and overall three wheel design was defective. Honda argued that Sanchez death due to his own negligence in failing to control speed, failing to wear a helmet, and failing to properly inflate the tires.Hondo also chose to blame the parents for allowing the child (12 years of age) to ride with out a helmet and with over inflated tires. Pl. family had the vehicle for over a year and a half prior to the death

In additon to finding that the 3-wheeler had design and marketing defects, the jury found that Honda and the parents were 331/3 negligent. The mother was awarded $15 million for mental anguish, and loss of compaionship and society, and the father was awarded the same for a total of $30 million.

The trial lasted for ten days: nine days of testimony and argument with one day for deliberations.

There were two theories of recovery, both based on the comparative negligence finding: 1. award reduce to $10 million and no award on punitive because of the percentage of Honda's negligence.

Pretrial demand: $925,000. Pretrial offer: $150,000.00

Sidelights: Punitive was not submitted due to lack of evidence; Court struck pleadings against individual dealer and dealership due to action of Plaintiff counsel ( Bob Bennett not involed in this action and was not present for sanction hearing); At the time this was belived to be the largest verdict against Honda in Texas and one of the largest in the United States for a three-wheeled ATC; Attorney Bob Bennett was lead plaintif counsel in a $10.3 million dollar verdict in Hidelago County in 1995:Barrera v. Honda.

Case was settled on appeal with confidentiality agreement. Costs ran to $100,000.00 + $1 million to Client and approximately $80,000.00 paid to Attorney Bennett for work done at trial.

Bob Hilliard of Corpus was lead counsel with Bob Bennett taking active role as Second chair ;made opening statement and presented several witnesses.