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Our client has told us that their successful settlement of a seat back failure case is directly related to our skills at securing documents. We congratulate them and are glad to be a part of their success.

Travis Oldhauser was traveling in his Jeep Wrangler when he was hit from behind in a multi-vehicle accident. His seat back fell rearward causing him to suffer quadriplegia.

Oldhauser engaged Bill Atlee at Atlee, Hall & Brookhart in Lancaster, PA to represent him.

Early in the case we determined that Johnson Controls was the manufacturer of this bucket style, one piece head restraint seat. Discovery requests to the vehicle manufacturer yielded no pertinent seat documents. LSSLC, LLC suggested that the seat documents be subpoenaed directly from the seat vendor, Johnson Controls. According to attorney Jaime Jackson, these documents produced by the vendor proved pivotal to exposing this weak seat design.  

The case settled prior to trial but, not before Atlee Hall did some focus group analysis. Here they found a negative reaction to the defendant manufacturer when the group learned that the defendant did not meet their own internal standards. The group was also surprised at the dramatic collapse of the seat back seen in FMVSS 301 testing videotapes footage and about how little the rear of the Jeep vehicle was damaged when considering Mr. Oldhauser's injuries.

The results of this focus groups reactions added to the successful outcome.

Attorney Jackson said that getting documents from the vendor was threatening to the vehicle manufacturer and that in the future, he would include the vendor in a case from the beginning. 

Questions? Contact Linda Sherman at 610-642-7755 or email lss@lsshermanconsulting.com
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