Southeast Toyota Installs After-Market Seats: 7 Year Old Paralyzed

JM Family Enterprises, the owner of Southeast Toyota, is one of the largest Toyota distributors in the country. Southeast Toyota imports Toyota vehicles and distributes to more than 166 dealerships throughout the United States. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Southeast Toyota imported thousands of Toyota 4-Runners from Japan. The 4-Runner, Toyota's hottest selling SUV, is designed with standard back seats which fold forward to allow additional cargo space. The OEM (original equipment manufacture) seats and seat backs were bolted into the floor pan with a steel hinge.

Through an agreement with Toyota, Southeast Toyota imported hundreds of 4-Runners into the United States without back seats. Southeast Toyota then installed after-market back seats after the vehicles arrived in the States, and delivered the 4-Runners to its dealers after the back seats were installed. The problem? Safety. The aftermarket seats installed by Southeast Toyota were not bolted to the vehicle. Instead of using Toyota's original design, which called for the back seats to be bolted to the floor pan, the aftermarket seats utilized spring-loaded pins that were merely inserted into a bracket on the sheet metal interior.

The Profitt family alleged in a recent lawsuit that the hazard this choice poses was horribly illustrated in June 1998 when Bobbie Jo Profitt's 1987 4- Runner's tire tread separated causing her to lose control. The 4-Runner started to yaw, left the road and rolled over. The vehicle was equipped with aftermarket back seats. During the rollover sequence the walls of the 4-Runner flexed, causing the pins that held the back seats in to separate from their brackets. Because the seat backs were not bolted to the floor pan, the plaintiffs' claimed that when the pins separated the seat backs came out of the vehicle.

Delora Profitt, Bobbie Jo's 7 year old daughter, was sitting in the back seat. She was wearing her seat belt. The lawsuit alleged that when the after-market seat backs became detached during the rollover sequence, there was nothing to keep Delora in the vehicle. She was ejected and rendered a paraplegic. The Profitt case illustrates the hazards posed by non-OEM seat backs. As the plaintiff's alleged in the Profitt case, in the event that a rear seat back detaches, seat belts offer little to no protection to the occupants and therefore do not prevent the occupants from being ejected or sustaining catastrophic or other very serious injuries.