Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 115 total)
  • Pinder v Fox
  • Stoner
    Free Member

    rather a damp squib Im afraid, but I understand that an out of court settlement was reached late last year before a judgment was handed down and confidentiality clauses prevent the parties to the case discussing the settlement further. So it seems we will never know how a court might have decided on the evidence that was presented.

    Some of you know that I was following the case (under the nom-de-plume spoompliM prior to STW ver 2.1) and posting brief reports of the technical evidence at http://spoomplim.blogspot.com/ and like many others was looking forward to hearing how m’learned had picked his way through the vast amounts of evidence to come to his judgement on the balance of probabilities.

    As my parting comment on this I’ll just say that while the case itself was to resolve historic events and their causes, at least the design changes that have developed over the years since (whether or not as a consequence of Russ’ accident) such as forward facing drop outs and 20mm/15mm bolt through systems provide excellent alternatives for those that seek some comfort (although wouldnt it have been nice to see a common licenced 20mm standard eh? 🙂

    As Mike Davis over on the other channel once said, “If any engineer sat down with a clean sheet of paper, they wouldn’t come up with a design like the one we have for holding wheels into disc-equipped bikes.”

    The inertia of legacy systems and designs is strong, but despite the slow machinations of the world of fork/hub/brake development the days are numbered for the QR in sport MTBing regardless of their culpability or not. The arguments, however, may be longer lived!

    richc
    Free Member

    fingers crossed he got a big settlement (which I suspect he did) my partner who has worked in this field (on the insurers side) was amazed it was ran to court especially considering the consequences of them judging against Fox.

    Fox must have been trying to call there bluff in order to reduce the settlement fee.

    aP
    Free Member

    Yes, heard this from a quiet place last week.

    hora
    Free Member

    So…..what happens if someone has an accident with the same forks in good working condition? There isnt a precedent to go on so where would they stand? Just thinking is it worth people with this type of design continuing to run such forks? A lad from Hebden Bridge has the same forks and his once came undone- he noticed though and retightened before anything untoward happened.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    out of court settlements change nothing.

    If someone thought they had a case on it’s merits they could pursue it if they had the courage.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    for Fox to settle out of court they must have realised that there was a good chance fox would lose and both set precedent and opened the doors for many other claims.

    I am disappointed that Fox were not brave enough to see it thru as I would like to have seen a precedent set but good on Russ Pinder for getting a settlement. good luck to the man.

    druidh
    Free Member

    For Pinder to settle out of court he must have realised that there was a good chance he would lose and get nothing.

    I am disappointed that Pinder was not brave enough to see it thru as I would like to have seen a precedent set but good on Fox for paying a settlement anyway. Good luck to them.

    chakaping
    Free Member

    I imagine the future financial security was more important to him that setting a precedent.

    Slightly disappointing from our POV perhaps, but not surprising when you think about it.

    richc
    Free Member

    Why bother seeing it through if Fox are going to pay him enough to cover his medical bills and living expenses for the rest of his life?

    If I was Russ I would have done exactly the same, as in the end you have to look out for your own future, screw the moral high ground when it the choice between a comfortable future or struggling to make ends meet.

    jimmy
    Full Member

    I was expecting Michelle vs Sam in boob-off.

    🙁

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    I don’t blame Pinder at all – he went for it and he got what he needed.

    juan
    Free Member

    PMSL @ druidh

    aracer
    Free Member

    For Pinder to settle out of court he must have realised that there was a good chance he would lose and get nothing.

    A chance, rather than a good chance I’d suggest – after all nothing is ever certain in a court of law. From his perspective, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, and you also get into issues with awarding of costs if the eventual judgement is less than an already offered setttlement. If I was in his shoes I’d not care in the least about setting a precedent – it’s all about getting something to help him with the rest of his life.

    Not at all surprised Fox didn’t want to risk the precedent even if they thought they had a good chance of winning – they had a lot more to lose than Russ by a precedent being set – they surely must have always had an out of court settlement ready and waiting.

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    For Pinder to settle out of court he must have realised that there was a good chance he would lose and get nothing.

    Not necessarily. Fox have far more at stake than Pinder. As others have said, a court ruling would set a precedent and gain a lot of news. So fox may opt to settle out of court, even if it costs them more this time, as it may save money in the future.

    There are engineering reasons behind Pinders case and like Stoner, i’m glad there are now improvements in this area.

    IWH
    Free Member

    I wonder how much effect his case getting tossed out of the Californian Courts had on his decision to settle over here…

    Stoner
    Free Member

    IWH – care to elaborate?

    richc
    Free Member

    IWH zero I expect, especially considering the entirely different legal systems.

    TandemJeremy – Member
    for Fox to settle out of court they must have realised that there was a good chance fox would lose and both set precedent and opened the doors for many other claims.

    The decision to settle was probably made by Fox’s insurers, not Fox.

    Fox themselves may have thought they had a good chance of defending the claim, but the insurance company may have considered it more economical to settle to make the claim go away.

    IWH
    Free Member

    Stoner – he filed suit at the San Jose Courts as well back in 2005. It didn’t go anywhere.
    Richc – I was just wondering seeing as California is the land of Litigation and if you can’t get a settlement there…

    Regardless I’m glad to see he got something. I don’t want to get into his fault / their fault, it was a horrible accident which should never have happened.

    joe1983
    Free Member

    jimmy – mee too, was expecting some girl on girl action. Ah well there’s always the AandA thread

    pk-ripper
    Free Member

    Personally I would have liked to see fox go through with it as although there is no formalized judgement or precedent set I think it sets an informal precedent that further removes the individual from their personal responsibility and shifts the blame elsewhere. It would also have concluded whether forks are inherently dangerous, which I don’t believe they are if operated properly, and looked after. If they were that bad, wouldn’t we all be mashed up by now?

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    PK ripper – many folk have had QRS come lose. Its a known design flaw to have downward facing dropouts, QRs and discs.

    It needs a number of things to be less than optimum for it to happen so with many set ups it won’t. I personally know of several people who have had the QR losening happen – WHEN THEY HAVE FITTED THE WHEEEL PROPERLY

    druidh
    Free Member

    ….and he’s off…

    pk-ripper
    Free Member

    You see tj, that’s fine, but of the people I know and have ridden with for the last 20 years and countless hundreds of miles, there’s only one incidence of this that I’m aware of, which was with marzocchi forks and hope quick releases.

    So, that begs the question is it just luck or not? I still believe that whilst it’s a design that has flaws, they’re not sufficiently bad to cause such a number of problems compared with user error. Oh, and before you ask, the one incidence I know of was on my own bike, and I freely accept that on the balance of probabilities it was likely to be my error in putting the wheel on.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    PK ripper – for sure its rare that it actually cause issues – but when simple design changes will totally prevent the issue why not make those changes – indeed many fork manufacturers are doing so – all it needs is either the angle of the drop-out changing or the calliper to go in front of the fork leg. Then the issue goes away.

    Myself – I would never ride with a QR and disc.

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    However many hundreds of miles they might have done, that’s still a pretty small sample you’ve got there, pk. Negative evidence for such incidents which happen relatively rarely is no evidence at all. We’re not all mashed up because it does take a particular set of circumstances to happen.

    Meanwhile I’m aware of several instances of it happening, including one where I’m pretty sure it wasn’t user error.

    <Oops – not actually the real TJ – though in this instance I have a very similar viewpoint to him>

    aracer
    Free Member

    he filed suit at the San Jose Courts as well back in 2005

    Really? Not doubting your knowledge, just surprised by the timescale (for those who don’t know, the original incident was in early 2003), having a certain amount of experience of how long these things take to get to the court stage. Unless of course such a court filing in the US is a rather different point in the process compared to the UK.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    as aracer says IWH, I wasnt aware he’d filed at San Jose too.

    EDIT: found the filing, not sure what it means in terms of process though…
    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-candce/case_no-5:2005cv00757/case_id-28519/

    IWH
    Free Member

    I can put in a formal request for information at the Courts to find out exactly what happened. I was told it got thrown out (or something less dramatic) by one of the local shop guys.

    ski2484
    Free Member

    I’m very disappointed, I thought this topic was about the merits of Lucy pinder vs Sam Fox (breasts etc)!. Go Google for yourselves and you too will be amazed.

    2unfit2ride
    Free Member

    I’m with PK, it is totally understandable, but I really thought it was going all the way.
    Just who will be the one to stand up? the father of a dead son?

    🙁

    brooess
    Free Member

    Whatever the legal ins and outs I now have Pikes on my bike… £400 poorer is better than a broken neck. Hope Russ Pinder can now live life as fully as he can now he (presumably) has financial security…

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    samuri
    Free Member

    I’m happy Russ seems to have got what he wanted. If nothing else it will have made manufacturers rethink their design processes and that benefits us all.

    As far as the design goes, as mentioned above (whilst it is pretty crap), hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of riders have been using disks with suspension forks for twenty years and have (statistically speaking) not had any issues at all. I’ve been using them for 10 years and never had a wheel come out, even when the QR has been loose because I’ve not done it up properly. It’s a very special set of circumstances that can create this problem.

    I’ve broken 4 cranks in that time and each time I’ve slewed sideways dramatically and have luckily not shot under a car or fallen off a cliff. From my perspective, crank design is fundamentally flawed and should be rectified. But then I’ve been a lot luckier than Russ.

    alpin
    Free Member

    can’t see how its fox’s fault.

    this happened to me with a set of revs.

    luckily i was ok but had it happened on the road or even if had come a croppper and ended up like Mr Pinder, i think i’d have had a stronger case against the fok manufacturer…

    i think in Mr Pinder’s cae it was more his fault than that of fox. if anything it was more the fault of the skewer manufacturer. surely you check the QR tension before each ride….?

    J

    brant
    Free Member

    this happened to me with a set of revs.

    Manufacturing defect, workshop damage, fitted on a roof rack oddly… nothing close to what Pinder vs Fox was about.

    I ride Revelations, with a DT QR spinny thing, and a big front disc. I’m entirely happy with the security of the system.

    Small discs and shit skewers create the situation where the alledged problem occurs. I’ve seen “movement” happen under nose wheelies on tarmac (dropping down past the old Walsden Printing mill site just below the fishing lake), which led me to design my rigid forks with a forward angled slot.

    Small discs are OK. Shit skewers never are. I would never use any lightweight or titanium skewer on the front of my own bike if it had disc brakes.

    I’ve never experienced the “percussive loosening” that Pinder/Annan claim.

    I’ve seen plenty of badly fastened QRs.

    People will continue to get injured and crippled for life due to bicycles. Hopefully this will be infrequent. Good luck to all.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    IWH, with respect to the San Jose case, I now understand that it did not go to full trial following legal arguments regarding jurisdiction and the parties involved. It was not a decision made with respect to any of the technical arguments of the main case. The timing was a function of the respective statutes of limitation in each jurisdiction.

    jamesgarbett
    Free Member

    Why do big discs help prevent this?

    brant
    Free Member

    Not that the case is named to Fox Racing Box? 🙂

    brant
    Free Member

    Why do big discs help prevent this?

    Angle of force reaction.

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 115 total)

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