Opinion ID: 328550
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: previous owner letters

Text: 57 GM contends, as its second claim of error, that the letters sent to Truck owners in May, 1969, and October, 1969 comply with the notification requirements of § 113 of the Act and therefore constitute a defense to the present enforcement action. 92 GM argues that, at the very least, the prior letters contain adequate warning of the dangers of overloading, thereby requiring the Government to show a defect in non-overload situations to compel the mailing of additional notifications. 58 The District Court concluded that the prior settlement letters did not preclude the Government from relying on all available evidence to prove a safety-related defect. Under its large number of failures theory, the District Court found, on the basis of owner affidavits revealing numerous wheel failures, that all of the three-piece Kelsey-Hayes wheels were defective and ordered enforcement of the Administrator's notification directive. 93 59 Although we depart from the District Court's defect definition, we believe its general approach to appellant's defense is basically sound. The October 8, 1969, settlement agreement explicitly reserved the agency's right to continue the investigation and take such further action in the interest of safety as the available information warranted. Nothing in the settlement agreement or the prior letters precluded the Government from using evidence of failures on overloaded Trucks or Trucks with campers to establish that notice of a safety-related defect involving all Wheels should be sent to purchasers. Were the Government to establish on remand that a significant number of wheels failed under conditions of normal use (including reasonably foreseeable abuse or failure to maintain), it would be entitled to summary judgment ordering GM to send defect notifications to purchasers warning that the Wheels lacked an adequate margin of safety and describing the resulting safety risks. The 1969 letters would pose no defense for they neither contained a clear description of this defect nor warned that it pertained to all of the three-piece Kelsey-Hayes wheels. 94 60 Beyond this basic problem with appellant's proffered defense, there are deficiencies in the 1969 bulletins which undermine their adequacy. The purpose of the defect notification provision is to notify the owner in clear and unmistakable terms of the specific safety-related defect so that  corrective steps could be taken. 95 The 1969 letters, however, do not acknowledge any defect in the three-piece Kelsey-Hayes wheels. Rather, they merely warn of safety risks posed by certain conditions of use. The May letter recommends corrective action when the Truck has been used to carry excessive loads for any substantial period of time, implying that brief episodes of overloading pose no risk. The October letter's replacement offer, limited to Trucks with campers and other special bodies, may well have created the impression that Wheels on plain trucks presented no safety risk. NHTSA regulations, adopted in 1973, require an explicit statement that a defect relating to traffic safety exists and prohibit the notification from stating or implying that the problem is not a defect. 96 These requirements, based on NHTSA's experience with owner reactions are designed to produce notifications that will induce consumers to have defective components repaired or replaced. 97 We cannot say that the 1969 letters which (1) were not viewed by the Agency as adequate when written, 98 (2) do not clearly and unambiguously describe the relevant defect, and (3) imply that the problem is not a defect meet the Act's notification requirement.