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Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Tires Products Liability Litigation

Indiana choice-of-law rules would apply laws of individual plaintiffs' states in class action against Firestone and Ford on behalf of persons who had not yet experienced tire failure; thus, single nationwide class was unmanageable and should not have been certified.

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The full case caption appears at the end of this opinion.

Easterbrook, Circuit Judge. Firestone tires on Ford Explorer SUVs experienced an abnormally high failure rate during the late 1990s. In August 2000, while the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration was investigating, Firestone recalled and replaced some of those tires. Ford and Firestone replaced additional tires during 2001. Many suits have been filed as a result of injuries and deaths related to the tire failures. Other suits were filed by persons who own (or owned) Ford Explorers or Firestone tires that have so far performed properly; these persons seek compensation for the risk of failure, which may be reflected in diminished resale value of the vehicles and perhaps in mental stress. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred suits filed in, or removed to, federal court to the Southern District of Indiana for consolidated pretrial proceedings under 28 U.S.C. sec.1407(a). Once these have been completed, the cases must be returned to the originating districts for decision on the merits. See Lexecon Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26 (1998). In an effort to prevent retransfer, counsel representing many of the plaintiffs filed a new consolidated suit in Indianapolis and asked the judge to certify it as a nationwide class action, which would make all other suits redundant. The district court obliged and certified two nationwide classes: the first includes everyone who owns, owned, leases, or leased a Ford Explorer of model year 1991 through 2001 anytime before the first recall, and the second includes all owners and lessees from 1990 until today of Firestone ATX, ATX II, Firehawk ATX, ATX 23 Degree, Widetrack Radial Baja, or Wilderness tire models, or any other Firestone tire “substantially similar” to them. In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., Tire Products Liability Litigation, 205 F.R.D. 503 (S.D. Ind. 2001); see also 155 F. Supp. 2d 1069 (S.D. Ind. 2001). More than 60 million tires and 3 million vehicles fit these definitions.

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