Caterham being sued??

[Amused2death]

As per the post title, bloke passenger in a Caterham, it crashes, bloke trying to sue Caterham.

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norwich_man_se...

[Jasandjules]

I can't imagine Caterham admitting liability, and I'd also suggest that if many other Caterhams have been around the 'Ring and not had oil hoses go, there could be any number of reasons for it, including damage on the UK Roads which was not picked up, and perhaps even damaged during a service - all things which will be nigh on impossible to prove, and also close to impossible to prove that the driver was negligent.........

[CalculatedRisk]

while I feel for the guy.. I'm not sure if this will get very far

[Rawwr]

He's suing the wrong party. I believe it'd be the driver of the car he'd need to sue as - and I'm fairly sure someone will correct me - I don't think a driver can get a passenger to waive liability.

[StottyZr]

I don't know about this one. It seems the design was flawed and this caused the crash. Imagine if this was Toyota and a design flaw caused injury? Would they be expected to payout and recall all cars that may have the fault?

It could be a big kick to the face of small car manufacturers.

[Rawwr]

doogz said:

I thought that at first, but if the car was badly designed, and that is what led to the crash, he might have a point.

If there was a case for that, I think he'd still have to sue the driver who would then have to sue Caterham.

[Rawwr]

ETA IANAL.

[Rawwr]

doogz said:

Why?

I don't know. I'm going to look sheepish and slowly reverse out of this thread now.

[beep][beep][beep][beep]

[Gad-Westy]

Sounds like a nasty injury. I do feel for the guy but not sure how far he'll get.

Crap journalism though. How many times is nurburgring spelt wrong?

[Accelebrate]

Rawwr said:

I don't know. I'm going to look sheepish and slowly reverse out of this thread now.

[beep][beep][beep][beep]

Presumably if it's a common design flaw there must be other reports of similar issues in owners forums?

[Jasandjules]

Rawwr said:

If there was a case for that, I think he'd still have to sue the driver who would then have to sue Caterham.

No he would be entitled to sue Caterham in Negligence, he does not need any contract with them to sue.

Questionable whether Caterham would owe a duty of care to anyone in the world who might happen to get in the car though.

And again, how many caterhams have crashed due to a broken pipe leaking oil?

[Chris71]

Unless Caterham prepared the car for that specific event I can't see he has any sort of case against them. To be honest, even if Caterham was running the car as 'arrive and drive' I'd see something like that as a fundamentally risky activity and wouldn't go crying to the legal vultures if it went wrong.

[BarnatosGhost]

The article says the oil pipe grounds-out - naturally that would lead to failure very quickly. If the car is as-designed, that would be a ridiculously poor design, and there would surely be other examples.

I have no idea if Caterham have any liability though.

[dazco]

No idea if this will go anywhere or not but imagine if he was a pedestrian and a Caterham battered into him on the pavement because of the same fault. Would you expect him to sue? Expect him to win? is it any different because he is actually sat in the car?

[mat205125]

CalculatedRisk said:

while I feel for the guy.. I'm not sure if this will get very far

Ditto the first half of this post, however my fear is that some legal parasite could force this case either towards a formal legal finding, or throw enough muck and st into the media in the form of tenuous "fact" and borderline libelous nonsense, that would lead Caterham to consider some kind of settlement as their best course of action.

[mrmr96]

Chris71 said:

Unless Caterham prepared the car for that specific event I can't see he has any sort of case against them. To be honest, even if Caterham was running the car as 'arrive and drive' I'd see something like that as a fundamentally risky activity and wouldn't go crying to the legal vultures if it went wrong.

Would it make a difference if the failure occured on the public roads?

Imagine if a mainstream manufacturer for the brackets wrong for brake pipes, and they would rub on the wheel until they failed. Surely if you had a bad accident as a result you'd be looking for redress?

[davepoth]

I'm sure someone with one of these cars would be better placed to confirm this, but I should think that the oil pipe doesn't hang down, but is quite low in the car. The Ring is ludicrously steep for the speed you take through it, so I'm thinking that the car was bottomed out pretty hard several times, and that is probably why the pipe ruptured, as opposed to a defect that is in itself dangerous.

If this wasn't Touristfahrten then I don't quite see how the claimant can suggest that the car was being used for what Caterham sells it for.

[TonyRPH]

BBC said:

The risk of crashes is well documented and there are reports of many deaths during public sessions.

Are there really THAT many deaths?

Or is this more sensationalist reporting from the BBC?

[andye30m3]

TonyRPH said:

Are there really THAT many deaths?

Or is this more sensationalist reporting from the BBC?

Quite a few, I think there's been 2 in the last 2 weeks, so far from uncommon.

[Herman Toothrot]

BarnatosGhost said:

The article says the oil pipe grounds-out - naturally that would lead to failure very quickly. If the car is as-designed, that would be a ridiculously poor design, and there would surely be other examples.

I have no idea if Caterham have any liability though.

The article states Caterham have already admitted liability.