Opinion ID: 782173
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: 1988-1996: CU's Republications of the Samurai Report and Further Rollover Claims

Text: Between 1988 and 1996, CU republished references to the 1988 Samurai rating on at least 24 separate occasions in Consumer Reports, CU's annual buying guide, and other editions of CU's car books. During this time, CU states, several events bolstered its belief in the correctness of its Not Acceptable rating: a 1988 England-based Consumers' Association article that buttressed the Samurai rollover claim; a 1988 lawsuit filed by seven state Attorneys General charging Suzuki with false and misleading advertising regarding the Samurai's rollover potential (the case settled); the decision in Malautea v. Suzuki Motor Corp., 148 F.R.D. 362, 375 (S.D.Ga. 1991), in which the court suggested that Suzuki knew of the Samurai's rollover propensity and did nothing to correct it; two separate multimillion dollar verdicts in the case of Rodriguez v. Suzuki Motor Co., where juries determined that the Samurai was unreasonably dangerous due to its rollover propensity (both verdicts were reversed and the case settled); the disclosure of documents from the Malautea and Rodriguez cases suggesting that Suzuki knew of the Samurai's rollover propensity; and eight years of further SUV testing by CU during which time only the Samurai in 1988 and Isuzu Trooper in 1996 tipped up.