Defective fuel tanks and car accidents
By: Darrell Castle
If you or a loved one have been injured by a fuel explosion in a car accident, call (901) 327-1212 to schedule a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney, or fill out one of the contact forms on this page.
Video Transcript
If the fuel tank on your car explodes or catches on fire and you suffer injuries, or even death, can you sue the manufacturer of that automobile for your injures?
Hi, I’m Darrell Castle and I’m an attorney licensed to practice law in the state of Tennessee and the answer to that question is YES, you can, but it will not be easy.
Manufacturers of cars take these cases very seriously and defend them very seriously. See, it’s probably going to affect more cars than just yours if something like that happens. Nevertheless, there are ways that it can be done and there have been very many, very prominent and large recoveries like that in recent years.
You can prove a defect in the automobile gas tank or fuel system – a defect like a bad well; shoddy, cheap or un-crash worthy workmanship on the fuel tank; or a defectively-placed fuel tank – in other words it’s placed so that the vehicle is not crash-worthy and is subject to a fire or explosion in an accident. Maybe it’s placed too close to the outside of the vehicle, like on a pickup truck it might be outside the frame rails of the truck or something like that, which was the issue in a famous case.
If you’re in my state of Tennessee, if you can prove that the product was defectively designed and that no responsible manufacturer would have produced or designed such a product, then you can recover.
Now, you have to have a serious injury, or death, in these kinds of cases. But folks, if your fuel tank explodes and you’re inside the vehicle, that’s probably not going to be an issue, unfortunately.