Woman Hurt by Air Bag to Appeal Jury Decision

Attorneys for a 78-year-old Ventura woman who sued General Motors Corp. after being injured by her car air bag said Wednesday she plans to appeal a verdict in favor of the automotive company.

After deliberating for less than a day, a jury ruled that Norma Pruitt had not proved that the air bag in her 1991 Chevrolet Beretta was defective.

But her attorneys say the jury’s decision might have been different if the panel had been instructed on the finer points of the law regarding consumer expectation.

They say that retired Ventura County Judge Marvin H. Lewis erred by not allowing a jury instruction on that point, and by not allowing the plaintiffs to tell the jury about warnings the automotive company later sent out about air bags.

“Those are two very strong points of appeal,” Ventura attorney Kevin M. Fillo said. “It is not over and, quite frankly, we would have been here even if we won.”

Pruitt sued GM last year on the grounds that the nation’s largest car maker knew the risks of the air bag in her vehicle, but failed to warn her and other consumers.

Pruitt was hospitalized with a broken jaw in March 1995 after the air bag inflated during a low-speed accident in Oxnard. If it had not deployed, her attorneys argued, she would not have been injured.

But GM’s attorneys told the jury that the fact that Pruitt was injured does not mean the air bag was defective.

In his closing argument, San Jose attorney Vincent Galvin cited a federal report that credited air bags with reducing the number of traffic fatalities nationwide.

Pruitt’s case was only the second of its kind to reach a California courtroom. The other lawsuit, which ended with a judgment for the plaintiff in Los Angeles Superior Court, is now on appeal.

“As strange as it may sound, we might be better off than if we had won,” Fillo said after the decision, explaining that his case has solid grounds for an appeal.

“We are still kind of regrouping,” he said, adding that his client is taking the ruling in stride. “I think she is very stoic about it all, and it is not over.

“The law about this is just not settled yet and it is not a frivolous point,” he continued. “It is a matter of law that will apply to automobile restraint cases from here on out. Important issues of public policy will be addressed in this appeal.”

Fillo said he plans to file papers with the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Ventura in the next few weeks. Pruitt was seeking a judgment of at least $500,000.