The Ford Pinto Criminal Trial (1980) | American Corp. Prosecuted Criminally for Exploding Fuel Tank

STRIKER: Whatcha looking at?

WOMAN: The Pinto.

STRIKER: I like it. My kind of car.

WOMAN: Oh really?

STRIKER: Sub-compact. Lots of trunk space. What's the price?

WOMAN: Under 2,000 dollars.

STRIKER:Huh?

WOMAN: In 1971.

STRIKER: Oh that makes sense.

Still a good deal though.

But why is it here in the law museum?

WOMAN: The Pinto was at the center of a very important trial in 1979,

State of Indiana v. Ford Motor Company.

This was the first time an American corporation was

criminally prosecuted and the whole country was watching.

STRIKER: Why?

WOMAN: Everybody wanted to see if a company could be

punished criminally for creating a product,

in this case, an automobile that was unsafe.

STRIKER: Yipes!

STRIKER: So what was wrong with the Pinto?

WOMAN: Well, the Pinto was created to satisfy two main objectives.

Lee Iacocca, who was executive vice president of the Ford Motor Company,

tasked his engineers with creating a car that would weigh less

than 2,000 pounds and cost less than 2,000 dollars.

German and Japanese manufacturers were making lots of money producing

sub-compact cars and Ford Motor Company wanted in on the action.

STRIKER: What's wrong with that?

WOMAN: Well, nothing but I haven't finished the story.

Ford was in a hurry to introduce their car into the market so they

accelerated their production time from their usual 43 months to 25 months.

Compromises were made.

Serious risks associated with the placement of

the Pintos fuel tanks were ignored despite crash tests resulting in flames.

STRIKER: Flames?

WOMAN: Yes, flames.

The rush design placed the fuel tank behind

the rear axle instead of over it like most sub-compact cars,

this left only 9 or 10 inches of crush space.

Other design flaws included a thin strip of chrome for

a bumper and a lack of reinforcement around the fuel tank.

The results? At speeds over 25 miles per hour,

the fuel tank ruptured every time it experienced a rear impact.

STRIKER: Yipes! That looks deadly.

WOMAN: It was.

STRIKER: Couldn't they fix it?

WOMAN: They certainly could have improved the situation.

Engineers at Ford came up with

several modifications to significantly improve the safety of the vehicle.

STRIKER: So they did make it better?

WOMAN: No.

STRIKER: How come?

WOMAN: Well, despite the cost being only 11 dollars per car, Ford declined.

STRIKER: Why?

WOMAN: It's hard to say.

However, we can gain some insight into the corporate mentality

at Ford from an internal report regarding safety,

which was leaked to the media.

STRIKER: What did it say?

WOMAN: The document, nicknamed the Pinto Memo,

was created by several analysts at Ford.

It compared the cost of making safety improvements in advance with the cost

Ford would most likely incur through death and injury lawsuits and lost vehicles.

STRIKER: What?

WOMAN: It's called a cost-benefit analysis.

Ford estimated that if they did not fix the safety issues,

there would be 180 deaths,

180 injuries, and 2,100 vehicles destroyed.

They even determined a value for each loss, $200,000 per death,

$67,000 per burn injury,

and $700 per lost vehicle,

which was the average resale value of a Pinto at that time.

STRIKER: That's crazy.

WOMAN: The public especially didn't appreciate their $200,000 valuation of a human life.

STRIKER: Uncool.

WOMAN: They compared these costs to those associated with redesigning and installing

better safety features on the 12.5 million cars they expected to sell.

The cost was only $11 per vehicle.

STRIKER: And the result?

WOMAN: They determined it will cost the company approximately $49 million in

lawsuits and lost vehicles to sell the Pinto as it was already designed,

or it would cost

approximately $137 million to redesign and improve the safety defect in advance.

STRIKER: What did they decide to do?

WOMAN: What do you think?

STRIKER: Keep the money?

WOMAN: Yep, they save the money and ignored the safety risk.

STRIKER: What happened?

WOMAN: An estimated 27 people were killed in rear-end collisions involving the Pinto.

Upon impact, the fuel tank would puncture and explode,

often sending fuel into the driver's compartment which would then ignite.

STRIKER: That's terrible.

WOMAN: In one of the few cases that made it to trial,

Grimshaw versus Ford, a California jury awarded a boy who had been badly burned,

127 million dollars, 125 million of which was for

punitive damages to punish Ford for its decision to elevate profits over human life.

Although the judge subsequently reduced the punitive damages to 3.5 million,

the unexpectedly high amount sent the Ford Motor Company scrambling.

STRIKER: Scrambling to do what?

WOMAN: To settle as many of their pending cases as possible out of court.

STRIKER: How many cases were there?

WOMAN: Ford was involved in dozens of cases related to the Pinto.

However, their public image was suffering more than their bank account.

Here's an opinion given by a California Appellate Court regarding the Ford Motor Company.

STRIKER: "Ford decided to defer correction of the Pinto's shortcomings by engaging in

a cost-benefit analysis balancing human lives and limbs against corporate profits.

Ford's institutional mentality was shown to

be one of callous indifference to public safety.

There was substantial evidence that Ford's conduct constituted

conscious disregard of the probability of injury to members of the consuming public.

The conduct of Ford's management was reprehensible in the extreme.

It exhibited a conscious and callous disregard of

public safety in order to maximize corporate profits."

Harsh words.

WOMAN: It was a disaster.

In 1976, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

finally introduced rear impact safety regulations.

Ford complied with the standards on their new 1977 Pinto model.

However, the NHTSA also announced that a safety defect existed in

the fuel systems of all Pintos manufactured between 1971 and 1976.

Ford was forced to recall and repair 1.5 million cars.

STRIKER: But what about those criminal charges you mentioned earlier?

WOMAN: Oh yes. That's right.

Prior to 1978, Ford had only been sued for monetary damages.

However, that changed on August 10, 1978,

when three teenage girls were driving in a 1973 Pinto down a highway in rural Indiana,

suddenly their gas cap rolled from the top of their car into the middle of the road,

realizing they forgot to attach it after fueling up,

they stopped their car to retrieve it.

Since there was no shoulder available,

they parked their car in a driving lane.

Moments later, a van whose driver was distracted as he searched for

a fallen cigarette hit their Pinto while traveling at 50 miles per hour.

The Pinto burst into flames and all three teenagers were killed.

The state prosecutor charged the Ford Motor Company

with criminal recklessness and reckless homicide.

STRIKER: This was the first time a corporation had ever been charged with a criminal offense?

WOMAN: In a product liability case, yes.

STRIKER: Wow. I'll bet other corporations around

the country were nervous about the outcome of the trial.

WOMAN: Yes, they were.

STRIKER: What did the court decide?

WOMAN: On March 13, 1980,

the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on

all three counts of reckless homicide against the Ford Motor Company.

STRIKER: Really, how come?

WOMAN: The prosecution was unable to show that Ford had failed to warn the public about

the Pinto's defects since Ford had issued a recall prior to the date of the accident.

STRIKER: But the girls didn't hear about the recall?

WOMAN: Yes. But just because you don't hear about something

doesn't mean it didn't happen.

The defense also called several Ford engineers to the stand who

testified they bought 1973 Pintos for their wives, children, and themselves.

This showed their confidence in the safety of the car.

But the main reason Ford Motor won the case was

because the impact happened at 50 miles per hour.

STRIKER: Why did that matter?

WOMAN: Well, not even the new rear impact standard in effect for 1977

models required that car fuel tanks be able to withstand crashes at that speed.

STRIKER: I see. So nothing happened to Ford?

WOMAN: Ford Motor paid out well over $100 million in damages,

endured approximately 117 civil lawsuits,

and recalled 1.5 million cars.

STRIKER: I guess that is pretty significant.

I just feel bad for all the people who unknowingly rode in a car that was clearly unsafe.

WOMAN: No car is ever 100% safe.

Just remember, every time you get into a vehicle, drive carefully.

STRIKER: Buckle up for safety.

WOMAN: Good advice, Striker.

Now, let's see if we can learn some other important lessons from the history of law.

Click on something and let's go explore.