Jury orders tire maker to pay nearly $12 million in Raymondville court case

RAYMONDVILLE — A Willacy County jury returned an $11.96 million judgment against the nation’s largest tire maker Thursday, after finding defective tires caused a wreck that killed six people and left a 12-year-old boy paralyzed.

The panel found that a manufacturing flaw in a Goodrich tire — made by South Carolina-based Michelin North America — substantially contributed to the New Year’s Eve 2006 crash that occurred just outside Matamoros.

The tire on a 2002 Ford F-250 pickup truck driven by the family of then 10-year-old Jesus Guzman separated from its tread, causing the vehicle to swerve into oncoming traffic, according to court documents. The truck collided with a Chevrolet Suburban killing all six passengers inside the SUV.

Throughout the trial, attorneys for both families argued that leaks in the roof of a Tuscaloosa, Ala., manufacturing plant had damaged the machinery used to make hundreds of tires. The faulty tire on the Guzman family’s vehicle was among that batch.

Michelin representatives eventually fixed the leaky roof as part of a 2004 contract with its labor union.

The company maintained that the bumpers on the Guzman family’s Ford scraped off the top of the tire, but that argument was made only after Michelin urged its employees at the Alabama plant not to talk with attorneys for the plaintiffs. State District Judge Migdalia Lopez censured the company for tampering with potential witnesses in the case.

Jesus Guzman’s attorney J. Michael Moore said Thursday’s verdict will go a long way toward helping his client, who remains paralyzed from injuries sustained in the wreck.

“He went from an energetic 10-year-old boy to paralyzed,” Moore said. “He can’t play basketball. He can’t play sports. He can’t do any of the things normal teenage boys do.”

Michelin’s Austin-based attorney Thomas Bullion did not return after-hours phone calls Thursday seeking comment on the verdict.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.