PREPARED STATEMENT
OF
TIMOTHY F . SCANLON
ATTORNEY AT LAW SCCANLON & GEA RINGER CO . , L . P . A .
AKRON , OHIO
To The Members of The Sub - Committee :
I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before you
I
am
today , to share with you my feelings about the extremely serious
risk created by the 3 - wheel all - terrain vehicles .
This risk has
rec
en
Sur
only recently been given the attention and exposure which it deserves . Unfortunately , the public has begun to be made
aware of this risk only because of the increasing number
of
shocking tragedies - brain injuries ,
paralysis and death
- that
are far too often the by - product of riding these motorized
tricycles .
My understanding
of the danger presented by this product
was
ma
was
began in the spring of 1981 , when I first met John McKinley . John was then a 29 year old , married construction worker , father of two young children , who was a C - 5 quadriplegic ( paralyzed from his nipple level down ) as a result of being thrown from a Honda 110 3 - wheeled all - terrain vehicle on October 6 , 1979 . In October , 1981 , on behalf of John and his wife , Terri , who is with us today , I filed a product liability case
S
re
against the Japanese and American Honda Companies which had
manufactured and imported this vehicle into this country .
When we began that case , all of us connected with it had no
real understanding as to why John ' s accident had occurred .
We
were probably motivated primarily by a " gut " feeling that what happened should not have happened - because John was operating this vehicle on exactly the kind of terrain on which , and in exactly the manner in which , Honda could reasonably have expected it to be operated . Our case was based upon our belief that John had been injured not because of any fault or unusual behavior on