In article ,
tony sayer writes:

IIRC Ford in the USofA had a car, the Pinto, that almost blew up in a
rear end collision, apparently some bolts would tear the fuel tank
apart.

It seemed at the time it was cheaper for Ford not to modify production
but to argue the accident claims.

This was of course before litigation became the business it is today..

This was the case which changed that. ISTR Ford argued it would
have cost them $125M to change the design of the fuel tank so
the cars didn't all burst into flames on rear-end collisions,
in a case where they were being sued by someone who was badly
burned. So the Judge turned to them and said, in that case, the
damages will be $125M to make it clear you will not use finiancial
considerations in deciding if it's worth fixing a faulty design to
save lifes/injuries. Ford had been expecting damages of well under
a $1M based only on the injuries, loss of earnings, etc. and had
calculated it was cheaper to pay the damages to many victims than
to fix the design fault. This case changed that from then on.

--
Andrew Gabriel