Of the half-dozen cases El Paso litigator Sam Legate has filed against tire manufacturers on behalf of professionals who get injured mounting rubber onto wheel rims, he said the defense is the same—it's always his client's fault.

Yet Legate recently convinced an Arkansas state jury that his independent tire shop owner client Michael R. Snyder did nothing wrong when a Chinese-made tire exploded on him during the mounting process, winning him $2.5 million in damages.

Snyder, owner of Snyder Automotive in Helena, Arkansas, was attempting to mount a tire made by Qingdao Xiyingmen Double Camel Tyre Co. when it exploded, propelling it off a tire-changing machine and knocking Snyder to the ground, causing a serious head injury.

Snyder later sued Qingdao for negligence in a Helena state court, alleging that the antiquated design of the tire caused it to malfunction during mounting. Specifically, Snyder alleged in his petition that the bead of the tire was too tight, causing the tire to malfunction during the mounting process.

“The bead is the inside part of the tire that touches the rim,” Legate explained. “When you put the tire on the rim and start airing it up, we've all heard it pop into place. This was a tight bead, it was too small for the rim so it didn't pop into place. Our guy realized that. And when that happen, it failed and exploded.”

Snyder also sued Elaine Petroleum, who had sold the tires he was attempting to mount.

As part of his argument, Legate explained to jurors that American tire companies started moving away from the tighter “weftless” bead design used on the Qingdao tire beginning in 1955. And by the mid-1990s, U.S. tire makers had completely stopped using the weftless bead design because of safety concerns.

He also argued that Snyder had no warning that the Qingdao tire he was installing was any different than the thousands of other tires he'd put on customers' vehicles.

“He's no more sophisticated about the tire than you or I, and he thinks they're going to be like any other tire,'' Legate said. “He just mounted it like he always does. He did it just like all of the Michelin and Firestones made in the U.S. that don't fail.''

Defense attorneys for Qingdao and Elaine Petroleum argued that there was no design defects on the Qingdao tire and presented an expert witness to back up their argument.

Louis Etoch, a Helena attorney who represented Qingdao at trial, declined to comment. G. Spence Fricke, a Little Rock attorney who represented Elaine Petroleum at trial, did not return a call for comment.

Legate noted that the defense expert witness testified that, out of the 10,000 tires he's examined, he'd never found a bad tire.

“And every time he testifies, it's always the tire installer's fault,” Legate said. “So we said, watch this: 'They're going to blame it on the installer instead of the tire manufacturer.'”

And that's exactly what the defense expert witness did, according to Legate. The defense expert also claimed there were no studies that finding safety concerns with the weftless bead design, he said.

“To get a good verdict, you get the jury mad,” Legate said, noting that some jurors had a physical reaction to the defense expert's testimony. “He said there were not studies on this, but there were three of them. Their expert was so not believable.''

“When I saw a juror shaking his head, I thought, 'We're OK,'' Legate said.

In their verdict, the jury concluded that the tires manufactured by Qingdao and distributed by Elaine Petroleum were unreasonably dangerous and were a proximate cause of Snyder's injuries. And in awarding Snyder $2.5 million in damages, they assigned 75 percent responsibility to Qingdao, 25 percent responsibility to Elaine Petroleum, and 0 percent responsibility to Snyder.

Legate was satisfied with the jury's verdict.

“The good people of Helena, Arkansas, found the right amount of damages,” Legate said. “It was a good verdict.”