The Ford Pinto Case

THE FORD PINTO CASE

Introduction

History of Ford Motor comprises of success and disastrous events, however, this essay will analyze one of the grievous cases that took the life of several people in the car accident. This dreadful accident took place on 10th of August 1978. Early in the morning, an eighteen-year-old boy Judy Ann Ulrich was heading for the Volleyball practice in Goshen in his 1973 ford pinto (Birsh & Fielder, 1994).

Further, he was not travelling alone, as he was accompanied by her younger sister and cousin of same age. Their journey was going smooth, until when they headed towards the North of United States, another vehicle coming at a same speed hit them from behind. The collision was so forceful that Ford Pinto tumbled like an accordion, which cores the explosion in the fuel tank of the car.

Within seconds, a huge explosion occurred and the Ford pinto was under the flames in which two young children Lynn Marie, and Donna immediately died. However, a people managed to get Judy Ann out from the car and was admitted to the nearest hospital, unfortunately could not handle the pain and died few hours later.

This was not the only accident related to Ford Pinto, in fact this occur right from its production has the history of involving in several accidents from 1971-1978, which in combine took the life of several people, got several people seriously injured, and several become handicapped for remaining part of their life's (Svhwartz, 1991).

Discussion

What went Wrong

Just two month prior to this accident Ford ordered this engineers to recheck the Gas tanks of all Ford Pinto that are under manufacturing department, and released a public notice through media and newspaper that people owning this vehicle must immediately bring it to the garage for rechecking of Fuel tanks (Legget, 1999).

Further, during 1971-1978 more than 50 Lawsuit were filed against ford motors under careless business practices. However, latest case was different from preceding cases as the prosecution layer charged ford motors under the 1977 Indiana Law that allowed the people to file a criminal lawsuit against any corporation.

Under this case penalty of $30000 ($10000 of each case) will be allotted to company if prosecution proved the guilt of the company. Due to the immense popularity of Ford Motors, this case was closely monitored by every citizens of the country, also this case was first of the history of United States that a corporation is brought to the court. The Ford Company spends a sum of around million in order to defense itself in the court. However, in order to prove his charge the prosecution had to prove that company does not follow this rules and procedures of developing a Car and was even reckless in placing the Fuel tank in Ford Pinto (Birsh & Fielder, 1994).

To the surprise of whole nation, the Prosecution was somehow able to produce seven witnesses who claimed that the car was moving around 15-35km/hr speed at the time of ...