"rs" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> The jury found in favor of Walmart in the front QR lawsuit in Marin
> county,
> California. Despite the fact that the Walmart lawyer's asked the jury to
> open
> a new in the carton bike to check out and the QR on that bike broke in the
> jury room, they still found in Walmart's favor, that it was all user
> error.
>
> Does anyone have more information on this trial and outcome?
>
>
A QR did break while the jury was evaluating a bike, but the bike was not in
a box when the jury got it. It had been admitted into evidence but had
resided in the judges quarters for most of the trial, out of the box since
the beginning. The jury requested this bike so one juror could explain the
incorrect "wing nut" style of clamping a front wheel into a fork. When the
QR was as tight as it could be made by spinning it tight, the juror tried to
show how the cam mechanism could no longer be used properly. As he
attempted to close the cam lever, the aluminum lever broke off, but left the
cam attached to the skewer and tightened into the fork from the wing nut
action.
The juror explained the situation to the judge and the attorneys threw their
opinions into the mix. The plaintiff's attorney requested a mistrial, but
that was dismissed. It was decided that the jury would be instructed that
the failure of this lever had no bearing on their deliberation as this case
was not about any QR mechanism that had broken or failed in any way. They
could not consider this failure in their decision. After all, the case was
about the QR's inability to hold a wheel in a fork when used as designed,
not because any QR had broken or otherwise failed.
All "conspiracy" charges were decided in favor of the defendants, as was the
claimed "defective" nature of the QR mechanisms in question . All
previously signed settlement agreements were deemed valid and binding.
