When Jeremy Warriner lost both his legs after a collision and subsequent fire that engulfed his Jeep Wrangler in 2005, he undoubtedly did not know that he also would lose his right to try to hold Chrysler Group LLC responsible for an allegedly defective brake-fluid container. And Terry Cole, a Missouri businessman confined to a wheelchair for the past 35 years, worries that a similar fate awaits his effort to make General Motors Corp. pay for the third-degree burns on the lower half of his body caused, he says, by a defective seat heater in his Cadillac Escalade.
As Chrysler and GM dispose of billions of dollars in assets and debts, Warriner and Cole have just two of potentially thousands of death and injury claims that either will be out of luck or will face near insurmountable obstacles to success. When both auto companies emerge from bankruptcy, they are expected, as in the terms of Chrysler’s sale to Fiat, to do so “free and clear” of all pending and future claims and interests in all property sold prebankruptcy.
