Yamaha Rhino Defective, But Ohio Girl’s Death Caused By Driver: Jury

An Ohio jury has ruled that the Yamaha Rhino is a defective vehicle; however the jury said that the driver of the side-by-side ATV that rolled over and killed 10-year-old Ellie Sand in 2007 was the cause of her death, resulting in a defense verdict. 

The mixed Yamaha Rhino lawsuit verdict will result in no monetary award to Sand’s family and is the sixth case won by Yamaha Motor Corp. over claims that their ATV is defective and prone to rollover. However, prior reports have suggested that Yamaha Rhino settlement agreements have been reached in more than 100 cases, allowing the manufacturer to avoid trial in some of the potentially stronger cases.

Ellie Sand died while taking a ride in a Yamaha Rhino at a church picnic in October 2007. According to evidence presented at trial, she was not wearing a helmet and it is unclear whether she was wearing a seatbelt. The Sand family alleged that design defects with the Yamaha Rhino made it unstable and unsafe, with a propensity to rollover.

Shortly after the Yamaha Rhino ATV was introduced in 2003, a large number of rollover accidents involving the vehicles began to be reported. In September 2006, Yamaha warned owners about the potential risk of Rhino rollover accidents, providing information about what consumers should do if the Rhino begins to tip over. However, critics argue that the Yamaha Rhino is an unstable, unreasonably dangerous vehicle and that the manufacturer failed to take steps that could have made the vehicles safer.

In 2009, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) launched an investigation into the vehicle after at least 46 occupant deaths were linked with the Yamaha Rhino. The CPSC then pressured Yamaha to suspend sales of the Yamaha Rhino 450, 660 and 700 models to make safety improvements.

Following two days of deliberation, the state court jury determined that the Yamaha Rhino is a defectively designed vehicle, but they determined that the driver, Nils McElroy, was the proximate cause of Sand’s death, not Yamaha. McElroy served 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to vehicular homicide following the Yahama Rhino accident.

The child’s father, John Sand, has been an outspoken critic of the Rhino since this accident, creating a website (www.yamaha-rhino-information.com) in honor of his daughter that provided information about the dangers associated with the vehicle, including statistics, news and case information on the Yamaha Rhino litigation.

Ellie Sand was the 28th person to die on a Yamaha Rhino, according to information provided by John Sand. However, an additional 70 people have died since his daughter. According to a statement made to the Dayton Daily News, John Sand indicated that he hoped the finding that the Rhino was defective might result in further regulatory action by the U.S. CPSC.

The Sand family is considering an appeal, according to a report by Cinncinnati.com. During trial, Yamaha brought in its own court reports to brief its witnesses on what had occurred in the trial before they went on the witness stand, resulting in the company’s legal team being berated in court by the judge.

This case is only the seventh Yamaha Rhino accident lawsuit to reach a jury so far, out of several hundred complaints that have been filed in state and federal courts throughout the United States. Although the circumstances of each accident are different, all of the complaints involves similar allegations of design defects with the Yamaha Rhino.

Yamaha has been successful at trial in all of the cases, but one. A Georgia jury awarded $317,000 in a Yamaha Rhino trial in May 2010, involving a man who suffered severe leg injuries during a rollover accident. However, the manufacturer has confidentially settled Yamaha Rhino lawsuits brought as a result of more than 100 accidents, and they continue to negotiate in a number of other cases.

Most of the cases that Yamaha has allowed to reach a jury, rather than settling with the parties before trial, seem to have involved underage drivers or passengers, riders who were not using all of the available safety equipment or vehicles that were altered after they were sold.

UPDATE: The original post indicated that John Sand’s website was no longer on-line. The site is now available again, after being ordered down by the judge during the trial.