A federal appeals court has upheld a lower-court verdict rejecting a Salt Lake man's claim that the manufacturer of an all-terrain vehicle was responsible for injuries he sustained in an accident.
William English had sued Suzuki Motor Corp. after the 1992 crash of his ATV while riding across sand dunes west of St. Anthony, Idaho.English was paralyzed after going over the vehicle's handlebars after it plunged down the slope of a dune.
A Salt Lake jury had ruled in favor of Suzuki in 1995, and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision July 30.
The appeals court upheld a pre-trial ruling by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene that English could not argue that Suzuki had provided inadequate warnings of risk, unless Suzuki was permitted to point out that English had violated a warning Suzuki had provided against drinking and driving.
The appeals court also upheld the summary dismissal of English's claim that the ATV's design was unstable, thus unsafe.