Jury Finds Porsche 930 Too Dangerous for Average Drivers, Awards $2.5 Million in Wrongful Death
Won by The McClellan Law Firm.
A San Diego jury found the Porsche Turbo 930 defective not from a single mechanical failure but because the car's power and handling characteristics made it inherently too dangerous for ordinary drivers, awarding $2.5 million to the family of Donald Fresh in what was the first U.S. verdict of its kind against an automaker.
What happened
In the summer of 1980, Cynthia Files borrowed her husband's Porsche 930 Turbo and drove through a La Jolla neighborhood with her coworker Donald Fresh as a passenger. The street carried a 25 mph limit. When Files accelerated from a stoplight, the car's turbocharged engine delivered a surge of power she was unprepared for. She reached roughly 60 mph almost instantly. Startled, she touched the brakes. The rear-engined car's tail swung wide, and the vehicle spun into oncoming traffic. Files survived. Fresh, a husband and father, did not.
Craig McClellan of The McClellan Law Firm took the case on behalf of Martha Garrison, Fresh's widow, and the couple's two children. The defense pointed to Files' driving and to the fact that she had been drinking. McClellan's argument went further: regardless of the driver's conduct, Porsche had put a vehicle on the market that was beyond what ordinary, untrained consumers could safely manage, and the company had failed to warn buyers of that danger. The brakes, which the complaint also alleged were defective, compounded the risk.
The jury deliberated and returned findings that cut across both theories. On a 10-2 vote, jurors concluded Porsche should have warned purchasers that the car's performance exceeded what average drivers could handle. On an 11-1 vote, they found the brakes defective. The panel assigned 100 percent of liability to Porsche, rejecting arguments that Files bore responsibility for the crash. The verdict: $2.5 million.
At the time of the June 1983 award, that figure tied the largest wrongful death verdict ever returned in California, matching the prior record set in a case involving the death of war hero and actor Audie Murphy. It was also the first U.S. verdict to hold an automaker liable on the theory that a vehicle's power and handling alone, not just a discrete component failure, rendered it defective for the foreseeable consumer.
Porsche appealed. The verdict was upheld. The case prompted Porsche to begin offering driver training to buyers of its turbocharged models, an acknowledgment that the cars' performance characteristics required skills beyond what most drivers brought to the wheel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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