$2.5 Million Verdict After Defective Chinese Tire Explodes on Arkansas Mechanic

Michael R. Snyder owned and operated Snyder Automotive in Helena, Arkansas, a small independent tire shop. One day while attempting to mount a passenger tire made by Qingdao Xiyingmen Double Camel Tyre Co., the tire exploded violently during the mounting process. The force propelled the tire off the tire-changing machine and sent Snyder to the ground, leaving him with serious head trauma.

Snyder filed suit in Phillips County Circuit Court against two defendants: Qingdao Xiyingmen, the Chinese manufacturer that designed and produced the tire, and Elaine Petroleum Distributor, Inc., the company that supplied the tire to the Arkansas market. The complaint alleged strict product liability, negligence, and breach of warranty.

At trial, Sam Legate of Scherr Legate argued that the tire contained a critical design defect at its bead, the interior band that seats against the wheel rim. The tire used a multi-strand weftless bead construction that made the bead abnormally tight. American tire manufacturers had abandoned that design by the mid-1990s precisely because of the mounting hazard it created. Legate told the jury that Snyder, as a tire shop operator, had no reason to suspect a commercially available tire would behave differently from any other tire he had mounted thousands of times before.

Co-counsel Joseph G. Isaac (also of El Paso) and local Arkansas counsel Chuck Halbert of West Helena assisted in the presentation. The jury found that both the manufacturer and the distributor bore responsibility for putting an unreasonably dangerous product into the hands of Arkansas consumers.

On October 25, 2018, the jury returned a verdict of $2.5 million in damages and apportioned fault 75 percent to Qingdao Xiyingmen and 25 percent to Elaine Petroleum. Snyder was found zero percent at fault. No reduction of the award has been reported.