$1 million awarded to MB rider/ fender failure

I think you all should read this! There are many facts that were left out of the story in the Tulsa World. The following article will be found at morelaw.com, and may paint a different picture.


Description: The Plaintiffs alleged that the Pacific Cycle Defendants had imported and
placed into the stream of commerce a bicycle that was inherently
defective and dangerous due to a defective front fender tab, which had
broken within the first week Plaintiff used the bike. On August 2,
2006, the Plaintiff was riding his Pacific Cycle bike, which had been
retrofitted with a 48 cc motor by an EBay seller, Wonderful Creations,
Inc. As he was proceeding to work on the morning of August 2, 2006, he
heard a snap or pop and then was propelled over his handlebars onto the
pavement. The Plaintiff suffered serious injuries to his shoulder and
left wrist, which required a total of five surgeries over the next two
to three years. He had medical expenses of $74,034.29, and he and his
wife had lost wages from their jobs with the City of Tulsa in the amount
of $25,442.77, which were not disputed at trial. The Plaintiffs also
sought and were awarded by the jury additional sums of money for mental
and physical pain and suffering, some slight permanent disability in the
left wrist, slight disfigurement from scars, and deformity from a broken
collar bone sustained in the accident, as well as the wife's stress and
mental anguish associated with her husband's injuries and medical
treatment. The case was presided over by U.S. District Court Judge
Gregory Frizzell.



The Plaintiffs presented testimony from William Coleman with
Analytical & Materials Engineering located in Norman, Oklahoma, that the
front fender bracket was inherently defective and dangerous, either as a
result of some bending and stresses that had been put on the fender
bracket that broke during its manufacturing process in China, or that
it simply was not a thick enough piece of metal. The Plaintiffs also
presented evidence that Pacific Cycle imports over a million bicycles a
year in the U.S. from manufacturing plants in Taiwan and China, making
them the largest importers of bicycles into the U.S. The Plaintiffs
presented evidence that Pacific Cycle had no independent engineering or
testing departments to check the safety and quality of their bikes.
Testimony was that the bike frame and fork was manufactured by a plant
in China, which Pacific Cycle claimed did safety testing and quality
control, but Pacific Cycle was unable to present any documentation to
support that claim. The fender and fender bracket were manufactured by
a different vendor also in China, but Pacific Cycle was unable to even
identify the specific vendor who had manufactured the fender and fender
bracket, and thus, was unable to present any documentation showing that
there was any safety testing or quality control done with regard to the
manufacturing of the fender bracket. Evidence was also presented by the
Plaintiffs that although Pacific Cycle imports approximately 200
different models of bikes into the U.S. market, they have one generic
manual, which is placed in the box in the Chinese and Taiwan plants, and
that manual showed two L brackets in the fender diagram, as opposed to a
single bracket, which was on the bike the Plaintiff was riding, and that
the manual contained no information regarding assembling or tightening
of the fender stays on the bike, which the Pacific Cycle expert, David
Mitchell, claimed may have not been properly tightened by the Plaintiff
when he put the fender on the bike after receiving it from Wonderful
Creations, and may have contributed to the accident.



Pacific Cycle's primary defense to the case was that the
subsequent modification of the bicycle by the EBay seller, Wonderful
Creations, had rendered the bicycle no longer a "bicycle" and that the
vibration of the motor, which had been bolted to the bike frame, had
caused a fatigue fracture of the bracket on the fender. The Pacific
Cycle corporate representative claimed that Pacific Cycle had no
knowledge that people in the United States were making after market
modifications to its bikes by putting motors on them, but the corporate
representative admitted that he had made no efforts such as sending out
an e-mail within the company or a survey to find out if this alleged
lack of knowledge of the after market modification was truly unknown by
all of the employees within the company. The Plaintiff testified that
at the time he decided to purchase a motorized bike that there were
numerous listings on EBay, both for bikes that had already been
retrofitted with the motor from numerous EBay sellers, as well as kits
from which one could install the after market motor themselves. Pacific
Cycle presented testimony from David Mitchell, an engineer from Georgia
and volunteer Olympic bicycle mechanic, who testified that although he
had done no scientific testing and had only examined the bike for
approximately an hour, that the vibration of the motor was an
unforeseeable modification to the bike and in fact had changed the bike
to where it no longer met the definition of a "bicycle", which has to be
solely humanly powered. Mr. Mitchell who does some independent
engineering and testing for other bike companies testified that Pacific
Cycle had their own engineering and testing department, which was
contrary to the Pacific Cycle corporate representative's testimony. Mr.
Mitchell said that Pacific Cycle did not ever hire him to do work on the
front end in testing or designing for products before they went to
market, but did hire him after people make claims of defective products
resulting in Pacific Cycle bike accidents to do forensic work, and that
he had testified at least 20 times at trial or deposition on Pacific
Cycle's behalf over the last four or five years. Mr. Mitchell claimed
that there have not been other reports of fender brackets breaking and
causing accidents, although he admitted that he had done any Internet
searches, was unaware that people were reporting fender brackets on the
front bicycle fenders breaking on other bikes on Internet websites, and
had not contacted the customer service department of Pacific Cycle to
see if any other customers had complained of fender brackets breaking.



Outcome: Plaintiffs' verdict for $1.1 million.

Plaintiff's Experts: David A. Mitchell, P.E. is President of MET Ltd., in Cumming, GA, an
engineering consulting firm established in 1995 to provide technical
consulting to individuals, industry, government and organizations in
areas related to bicycles and bicycling. He received his Bachelors
degree in Metallurgical Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia
in 1971 and completed graduate level coursework thereafter. Mr. Mitchell
completed the Bicycle Mechanics Clinic offered by U.S.A. Cycling and is
a Bicycle Mechanic licensed by the United States Cycling Federation. He
is a licensed professional engineer.
 
bah! those details made a bit of difference to my perspective, but this case still tastes bad, maybe even more so now...wonderful creations sold a (bicycle/engine) combo? if so, i think you have a case against w-c, but show me where and how that (ethically) makes this pacific's problem.

and meantime wonderful creations skates?! why? because they didn't have the kind of money you wanted is the only thing i can think of. too bad you got hurt, but imo you and w-c burned pacific big-time.
 
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In my view, it's almost always a case of individual, personal responsibility.
That's how I live.

That said, not everyone is equipped to evaluate the structural integrity of a mechanical device. As far as Pacific Bikes, and let's face it that's walmarts main supplier, they are junk. I wouldn't ride one of them without a motor yet that doesn't stop a lot of folks from buying them, including members here.

A couple of years ago when I first got into MBs I bought one from Wmart that many were raving about motorizing. I was in a hurry that day, paid for it and later when I got it home and looked it over and inspected the welds I wouldn't even ride it pedaling not less putting a motor on. I took it back.

Also, for an eyeful do a search of Pacific Cycle recalls, it's a long list and mostly children's bikes.They know better since the parent company, Dorel, also has owned other brands like Cannondale, Ironhorse and GT.
 
and meantime wonderful creations skates?! why? because they didn't have the kind of money you wanted is the only thing i can think of. too bad you got hurt, but imo you and w-c burned pacific big-time.

My feelings exactly. Seems funny how Lawyers look past details when the real negligent parties are poor.

On the other side of the coin tho, How do you like the chain of command for safety at Pacific? They don't even know who's making their parts! LOL!
 
Love it...Called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. I wish I had sat on that jury, the POS would of gotten S**t from me. Gee I think I'll go to Sears and buy a screwdriver, come home and poke my eye out and sue. The bike wasn't the issue it was the motor...dah.....Such BS. One good example of why insurance cost as much as it does. How about I get in my diesel truck and race up the road at 120 MPH, blow out my NEW Hancook tire out, run off the road, and blame either Dodge or Hancook for my stupidity. This **** makes me sick. The bicycle company didn't make the bike or mount the engine onto the bike. geeeee a third partty did. Who'ed know. Wonder if his brother built it for him.


Talk about POS!! You are pointing the finger right at yourself!! If you knew any facts, you would probably look at this differently!! The company that made the bike didn't WANT to make the front bracket thick enough to hold on the fender! The motor had NOTHING to do with the fact that this cheap company had bikes made (poorly), didn't have them checked or tested, then sent them to their new unsuspecting owner!! :eek:
 
These fender brackets have been breaking on Motored bikes, since 2005. (maybe earlier) This has happened twice in my town.

Are there any reports of the brackets breaking on non-motored bikes?
 
I recall the great "Bracket Conspiracy", it's right up there with fluoride in the water and the UFO cover-ups. The facts are obvious, it's always someone else that is at fault.
 
i get it, pacific wanted you to do a motored 30mph on their pedal-product, because they wanted you to get hurt. listen to yourself. i seriously doubt that the damages would have been so bad if you hadn't been motorized...btw-i've seen nothing detailing the safety measures you took on your own behalf before getting out there...is that because you took none? protection? inspection? i bet not. "unsuspecting" usually translates to "stoopid" in the world of MotoredBiking, and real MotoredBikers take their own chances. rebel indeed...you just wanted to be "cool" on yer fake motorcycle...how "cool" do you feel now?

what a litigious cry-baby you seem, you are telling the "truth" that serves your agenda, and you & your attorneys milked the situation...and you will find no sympathy here.

please stay away from the Motorsport from now on, you've done enuff damage.
 
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it does seem that from the owners negligence in investigating the fender bracket problem (very well documented here and elsewhere on the internet), we might get the shaft out of this deal !!!

thanks for nothing dude :(:(:(

enjoy your dough, but stay off motored bikes for our sake
 
I'm OK with the outcome if the plaintiff was able to prove that the bicycle was faulty out of the box, motored or not.

As for inspecting the gear ourselves-- the best I can do is look for signs of fatigue or stress; how would I know that a bracket, new from the box, is inherently too weak? I can either guess that it isn't or I can assume that the bike company has tested that the pieces can withstand at LEAST normal use.

No, the fact that engines have been designed for bicycles does not mean that all bicycles are designed for engines... or that ANY are. But if the fender failed in one week of purchase, there had to be something drastically wrong with the piece.

They were asking for around $100,000 for medical and lost wages; I don't know how much for "pain and suffering"... they were awarded $1.1 million. I think THAT much is extreme, fault or not.
 
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