70
his
part ,
but because of the operating characteristics
inherent in the design of this vehicle .
We believed that John
McKinley was a rider of ordinary skill , riding this 3 - wheeler in
an
mann
an ordinary manner , and that his inability to control the movement of the vehicle was an ordinary , predictable ,
foreseeable consequence that faces everyone who attempts to ride
this product .
From Honda , during preparation for trial , we learned that
only a few
other cases ,
involving claims that the rider was
injured when he was unable to control the direction of movement of the vehicle , had been filed prior to ours . As trial
n
ours
preparation went on , we also learned
from other sources , that
the cases which had been filed against Honda ( at that time we
were not interested in accidents involving products of any other
were I
te
es
manufacturer ) were only the tip of the iceberg .
From various
sources , some difficult to pin down , we began to hear that there
were many , many instances of serious injury and death
occurring
to persons riding these vehicles .
We
initially
contacted the consumer
Products
Safety
Commission appproximately one and one - half years prior
to our
trial .
At that time , we learned that the Commission ' s
only
official activity was a formal investigation of a complaint from
the parents of a young boy in Louisiana who had been killed as the result of an alleged malfunction of a throttle on a 3 - wheeled vehicle . The Commission ' s conclusion from that investigation
an
apparently was that there was no cause for action on its part .
( The Committee may be interested in knowing that trial of that case in Louisiana resulted in a verdict in favor of the family