Chrysler Injury Victims Protest Outside Company Headquarters

ABC's Tahman Bradley reports from Aubrun Hills, Michigan: A group of people claiming that they were injured or lost loved ones due to unsafe and defective Chrysler vehicles held a protest today outside the company’s Auburn Hills headquarters.  Standing near a ruined Chrysler mini van that was crushed in a 2007 accident, the group expressed outrage that the new Chrysler is exempt from responsibility for fatalities and injuries caused by defective vehicles built by the company before its bankruptcy.  As part of General Motors' bankruptcy, the auto maker agreed to allow consumers who are injured in car accidents to bring forth product-liability claims. Chrysler, on the other hand, is off the hook for such claims.     At a security checkpoint, the group was stopped from hand-delivering a letter addressed to new Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne and members of the auto maker's board of directors.  But the group, however, presented the letter to the head of Chrysler security, who promised he’d make sure it got to the appropriate people.  The people on hand had compelling stories.  One man, Jeremy Warriner, from Indianapolis, Indiana, lost both his legs when his 2005 Jeep Wranger was hit during an accident and a brake fluid container made of plastic broke apart, causing a fire.  Though he was hit in the accident by a 16-year old girl who drove through a stop sign, Warriner said the fire that broke out in his car “was Chrysler’s fault.”  Mr. Warriner's story has gained some national attention. In response to his accident, an Indiana congressman introduced The Jeremy Warriner Consumer Protection Act that would require auto companies partially owned by the government to purchase liability insurance.  A woman from St. Clair Shores Michigan, Christina Cattalano, says she lost her mother when her Chrysler minivan “self-shifted” into reverse.   She said she feels like her constitutional rights have been stripped from her by not being able to sue Chrysler for what an engineer hired by her attorney found was a transmission defect. The company doesn’t seem “sympathetic to the people they’ve killed,” said Cattalano.  The group contends that under the rules of Chrylser's bankruptcy, there are more than 30 million old Chrysler vehicles on the road that don’t provide protection against death or injury caused by defects. 
Another person on hand, Leslie, Michigan resident Josh Stellanger said the front seats of his 1998 Dodge Stratus collapsed in a collision, killing his 5-year old daughter who was seated in back of the car.  He said his mission is to make sure that no one else loses their child due to a defective Chrysler product. 
Several of the victims claimed that what they want even more than personal compensation is simply for Chrysler to admit that it has cars on the road with dangerous defects.  "I don't want anybody else to suffer what we suffered. We want Chrysler to fix the defects," said Stellanger.  Chrysler in a statement released today said that its bankruptcy has required painful concession from all parities, including unsecured tort claimants. Read the full Chrysler statement below. Full Statement: Bankruptcy is a difficult and challenging process, and all bankruptcies are not alike.  In Old Carco’s bankruptcy the ability to sell substantially all its assets to a third party purchaser to form a new company with a stronger balance sheet, more competitive labor agreements, and a right-sized dealer network was essential to the new company's survival in the short term and its ability to remain viable in the future. Legislation that would reverse some of the difficult but necessary actions taken during Old Carco’s bankruptcy will endanger the new company’s vi ability efforts and the
investment of U. S. taxpayers. While this bankruptcy has required painful concessions from all of Old Carco’s stakeholders, the alternative — liquidation — would have had much more painful consequences for employees, retirees, dealers, suppliers, and creditors (including unsecured tort claimants).