Norman Estate Case Study

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The Norman Estate vs. Honda America Mfg Company Facts The night of December 2nd 1992 Karen Norman and her passenger were drinking heavily. Bored, they decided to go visit “The Face” something of an urban legend in Galveston. The Face is what appears to be a man’s face emblazoned on the exterior wall on the second floor of Ewing Hall at the University of Texas. The Face was notorious in Galveston; the legend was if you stared into the eyes of “the Face” you could die. In a dance with death; Karen Norman and her passenger Josel Woods pulled up the Galveston Bay and drove up to a point where they could view “the Face”. After sitting there for an hour underwhelmed by the killing power of “the Face” they decided to go home. Karen Norman and her passenger stepped into Norman’s 1991 Honda Civic. As Karen Norman sat down the two point passive restraint system, a mechanically operated seatbelt which automatically draws taut over the shoulder, engaged. Karen buckled her lap belt manually and put her car into reverse, her passenger Josel Woods wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Unbeknownst to her Norman was reversing down a boat ramp and into the Galveston Bay. When the car hit the water the automatic seatbelt pulled tightly over Karen’s shoulder in reaction to the cars’ speedy deceleration. As the car was slowly sinking into the water Josel Woods looked over to Norman who seemed fine. Woods manually rolled the passenger window down and climbed out. She even turned back to grab her purse out of the car. Woods then swam toward the boat ramp, however, as she was swimming towards the boat ramp she heard Karen Norman scream out, “Help me. I can’t get my seatbelt undone.” Woods noted that Norman yelled out about being stuck again as Woods reached the bo... ... middle of paper ... ...lping to ease consumers’ minds about Honda’s day to day operations. Honda’s management team knew it had a strong appeal and allowed for the court case to answer the question the media and public wanted to know; who was responsible for Karen Normans death? After the reversal and take-nothing judgment Honda proved that it did indeed provide a quality product and Karen Norman’s death wasn’t attributed to anything Honda designed. Honda without saying or publicizing anything allowed the court decision to turn public opinion around. Honda let the public form its’ own opinions on the court decision; ultimately the public decided that the Honda case was a frivolous lawsuit brought by a grieving family and had no legal standing. The Honda management team made some missteps along the way but in the end came through to legally defend its products and assemble public support.

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