A jury in New Mexico sided with a Texas family on Friday, agreeing a defect in a Michelin tire was to blame for an incident that left three people dead.
The lawsuit was filed in New Mexico district court in San Miguel County on behalf of Rosalva Marin, Laura Marin Zamarripa and Alexis Zamarippa against Michelin North America and Discount Tire Company of New Mexico in 2021.
According to the lawsuit, Discount Tire in Hobbs, New Mexico, placed the four Michelin LTX M/S2 tires on the Ford Excursion that belonged to Eleazar Marin, who is the husband of Rosalva, father of Laura and grandfather of Alexis, who was 14 when she died.
On July 12, 2021, Laura Zamarripa was driving the vehicle northbound on Road 211 in Gaines County, Texas, when “suddenly and without warning, the front driver side Michelon tire experienced a catastrophic tread separation which caused the Ford Excursion to veer to the left into the oncoming, southbound lane of traffic.”
The Excursion collided head-on with a Chevrolet 2500 pulling a trailer, according to the lawsuit, killing all three family members in the Excursion.
The lawsuit alleged the tire was manufactured with improper adhesion between the skim stock and the steel belts, which caused the tire to fail; that it was defectively designed because it lacked “an adequate belt edge package;” that it was manufactured with an “inferior belt system;” that it lacked a proper ratio of belt width to tread; that it was inadequately cured in a way that did not allow for proper bonding of the various components; and that it was “inadequately and inappropriately manufactured which resulted in belting anomalies including offset belts, improper splices, irregular wire spacing, dog eared splicing and/or gapped splices.”
The jury determined Michelin was 100 percent liable and awarded $220 million in damages to the family.
The plaintiffs are represented by Wes Ball of Kaster Lynch Farrar & Ball in Houston. In a statement Ball said the result was hard fought.
“Michelin fought hard — all the way to the New Mexico Supreme Court — in an effort to not produce certain emails and documents that had not been produced before,” he said. “The court denied that request, and we believe those materials introduced at trial were key in showing Michelin’s decision to gamble with people’s lives.”
A message sent to Michelin seeking comment Friday afternoon was not immediately returned.
Michelin is represented by Mike O’Donnell with Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell.
The case number is D-412-CV-2021-00197.