May 16 -- Deflated. After suing automakers up one side of the street for the sin of not installing airbags earlier, trial lawyers are now suing them down the other over the injuries the bags occasionally inflict on children and small-framed adults. Last month Ford got hit with a $20 million verdict in a case where an infant was paralyzed by a Mustang's airbag, but last week a Detroit jury declined to find liability against DaimlerChrysler in a case where an airbag detonation killed 7-year-old Alison Sanders after her father ran a red light and broadsided another vehicle. ("Jurors clear DaimlerChrysler in 1995 air-bag lawsuit case", Detroit Free Press, May 11, link now dead; Bill Vlasic and Dina ElBoghdady, "Air bag suits unlikely to stop", Detroit News, May 12). Who was it that spread the original image of air bags as pillowy, child-friendly devices, the right solution for all passengers in all circumstances? Lawyers now wish to blame Detroit, but Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute quotes the remarks of longtime Ralph Nader associate Joan Claybrook, who headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Carter-era rulemaking: "Air bags work beautifully," she declared, "and they work automatically and�that gives you more freedom than being forced to wear a seat belt." (Letting people think an airbag might relieve them of the need to buckle up is now, of course, seen as horrifically bad safety advice.) Moreover, quoth Claybrook, the devices "fit all different sizes and types of people, from little children up to�very large males." ("Only Smart Air Bag Mandate is No Mandate at All", CEI Update, March 2). Even more striking, CEI's Kazman dug up this photo of Ralph Nader, who long flayed manufacturers for their delay in embracing the devices, using an adorable moppet as an emotional prop. Sam says the photo is from a 1977 press conference; he thinks it would make a lovely display in Nader's planned museum of product liability law in Winsted, Connecticut. [DURABLE LINK] MORE SOURCES: Bill Vlasic and Dina ElBoghdady, "Dead girl's dad fights air bags", Detroit News, March 29; Janet L. Fix, "Father's heartbreak fueled lawsuit after 1995 accident", Detroit Free Press, April 5; "The Deployment of Car Manufacturers Into a Sea of Product Liability? Recharacterizing Preemption as a Federal Regulatory Compliance Defense in Airbag Litigation", Note (Dana P. Babb), Washington U. Law Quarterly, Winter 1997; Scott Memmer, "Airbag Safety", Edmunds.com, undated web feature; Michael Fumento, "Paper Scares Parents for Politics and Profit", 1998, on Fumento.com website. - overlawyered.com