At the trial, General Motors contended in its defense that when a drunk driver struck seventeen-year-old Shannon Moseley’s truck in the side, it was the impact of the high-speed crash that killed Moseley. Mounted in this position, the tank was punctured during tests by projecting bolts when hit from the rear at 20 NIPH. Ford puts the figure at 23; its critics say the figure is closer to 500. The judge in the case advised jurors that Ford should be convicted if it had clearly disregarded the harm that might result from its actions, and that disregard represented a substantial deviation from acceptable standards of conduct. This standard would have required that by 1972 all new autos be able to withstand a rear-end impact of 20mph without fuel loss, and that by 1973 they be able to withstand an impact of 30 mph. RELEVANT FACTS Question: 1 … The evidence suggests that Ford relied, at least in part, on cost-benefit reasoning, which is an analysis in monetary terms of the expected costs and benefits of doing something. Additionally, the faulty cost-benefit analysis played a role as well. What explains Ford’s decision? Not only did Ford strongly disregard the industry safety standard for rear-end impact testing on the Pinto, but willing to prefer to issue its customers to the possibility of injury or death in their quest for a share of the small car market. Case Study Of Ford Pinto. In the team discussion about the pinto case was unanimous. According to the myth, however, businesses and people in business are not explicitly concerned with ethics. Abstract: This case is about the design of Ford Pinto specifically the gas tank that was in a dangerous place that would ignite the car in a rear-end collision. Everyone agreed that the Ford Motor Company should have replaced the gas tank part that would have saved so many lives. we might edit this sample to provide you with a plagiarism-free paper, Service Likewise in the Pinto case, Ford’s management whatever its exact reasoning, decided to stick with the original design and not upgrade the Pinto’s fuel tank, despite the test results reported by its engineers. Between 1971 and 1978, the Pinto was responsible for a number of fire-related deaths. Can a dollars-and-cents figure be assigned to a human being? Testing proved the Pinto was not the safest vehicle however Ford lobbied and argued that accidents and … Ford Motor Company (119 Cal.App.3d 757, 174 Cal.Rptr. Known inside the company as “Lee’s car,” after Ford president Lee Iacocca, the Pinto was to weigh no more than 2,000 pounds and cost no more than $2,000. If Ford is interested, primarily, in creating greater profits for their stockholders, then producing the Pinto is one way to do this. Utilitarianism and The Ford Pinto Case. Case Study from: Business Ethics Workshophttp://cases.ethicsworkshop.org/ Perhaps the most illuminating data comes from NHTSA fatality rates per million vehicles for 1975 and 1976. The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from the 1971 to the 1980 model years. Although, Ford Company paid the victims and the heft fines imposed on them, they knew that if found of homicide then the company might be taken out of the market place (Ford Pinto Case 2). Working 24/7, 100% Purchase Has the automobile industry learned a lesson from Ford’s experience with the Pinto? Ford didn’t have any concern on the lives of the American people, only to compete with its competitors for being the first to manufacture a cheap automobile for $2,000, regardless of how safe the vehicle was and how many lives it took. Introduction and Situational Analysis The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was released in the 1970s by the Ford Motor Company. Shaw & Barry (pp. Ford Pinto Case Study On August 10, 1978, three teenage girls died horribly in an automobile accident. The gas tank of the Pinto exploded on impact. If they would have put the $11 fix to the gas tank, they would have been in the number one spot and lives would have been spared. After the verdict, General Motors said that it still stood behind the safety of its trucks and contended “that a full examination by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the technical issues in this matter will bear out our contention that the 1973-1987 full size pickup trucks do not have a safety related defect.”. The smallest American Ford vehicle since 1907, the Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America. At the trial, company officials attempted to paint Elwell as a disgruntled employee, but his testimony was supported by videotapes of General Motors’ own crash tests. Everyone agreed about having the $11 safe tank in the cars for the safety of the individual purchasing the vehicles and that in the long run, the company would have saved millions of dollars and the embarrassment of the legal issues. Although the Pinto passed the NHTSA test, Ford officials knew that the Pinto was prone to catch fire when struck from the rear, even in low-speed collisions, thus it was unsafe to drive the car without any technical improvements implemented. The authors go on to discuss various estimates of the number of people killed by fires from car rollovers before settling on the relatively low figure of 180 deaths per year. 1090 Words5 Pages. However, the jury was persuaded that Moseley survived the collision only to be consumed by a fire caused by his truck’s defective fuel-tank design. The impact ignited a fire in the Pinto which killed Lily Gray and left Richard Grimshaw with devastating injuries. NHTSA thought so. Iacocca wanted the Ford Pinto in showrooms by 1971, the development and design process was accelerated from 43 months to 38 months. THE FORD PINTO CASE . In designing its 1971 Pinto, the Ford Motor Company decided to place the gas tank behind the rear axle. They are not unethical or immoral; rather, they are amoral insofar as … In 1972, a Ford Pinto driven by Lilly Gray stalled as she entered a merge lane … Since then, however, the Department of Transportation has determined that GM pickups do pose a fire hazard and that they are more prone than competitors’ pickups to catch fire when struck from the side. On August 10, 1978, eighteen-year-old Judy Ulrich, her sixteen-year-old sister Lynn, and their eighteen-year-old cousin Donna, in their 1973 Ford Pinto, were struck from the rear by a van near Elkhart, Indiana. In Detroit, worry was fast fading to panic as the Japanese, not to mention the Germans, began to gobble up more and more of the subcompact auto market. In my opinion, Ford was making a cheap automobile to be on top of the small car industry over all other automobile makers, domestic and foreign. AGENDA Summary Cost Benefit Analysis Ethical Issues Change Alternatives Recommendation 3. What undoubtedly swayed the jury was the testimony of former GM safety engineer Ronald E. Elwell. Academic Content. In fact, few imports could match their domestic counterparts, the proud products of Yankee know-how. Ford Pinto Case Study and Executive Summary. Never one to take a back seat to the competition, Ford Motor Company decided to meet the threat from abroad head-on. On March 13, 1980, the jury found Ford not guilty of criminal homicide. If they wanted to stay ahead of the competition regardless of the impact on the American lives. CASE STUDY “FORD PINTO” 1 2. In 1978 Ford was obliged to recall all 1971-76 Pintos for fuel-tank modifications. Ford had several options at its disposal to prevent, minimize, and at least warn its customers of the possible harm that could be associated with the Pinto. This, more than likely, contributed to the business decision made by Ford management to produce, market, and sell the Ford Pinto. The compressed schedule meant that any design changes typically made before production-line tooling would have to be made during it. To keep up, Ford Motor Company decided to produce the Pinto. On August 10, 1978, a tragic automobile accident occurred on U.S. Highway 33 near Goshen, Indiana. REFERENCES ADA. 29/07/13 MVBE AmritaSchool of Business, Coimbatore Group 1 AGroup 1 A Managerial Ethics &Managerial Ethics & Business ValuesBusiness Values II MBA 2012-14II MBA 2012-14 2. It broke down the costs as follows: Putting the NHTSA figures together with other statistical studies, the Ford report arrives at the following overall assessment of costs and benefits: Thus, the costs of the suggested safety improvements outweigh their benefits, and the “Fatalities” report accordingly recommends against any improvements–a recommendation that Ford followed. The problem is that Ford used a cost-benefit analysis not to upgrade the fuel system even if it lead to more deaths. ada. The judge reduced punitive damages to 3.5 million. The Ford Pinto’s design and development period was the shortest in automotive history (Trevino, p. 115). These comments were the key point of the Pinto case. Ford Pinto Fires Case Study and Executive Summary John Bonner, Scotti Greenleaf, Rose Scarbrough MGT216 University of Phoenix October 18, 2010 Sarah Nelson Ford Pinto Fires Case Study and Executive Summary Introduction During the Late 1960’s the Ford Motor Company was one of the leading auto manufactures in the United States. Also Ford felt the public wanted to maintain an inexpensive product and that extra safety features, though only an additional $11 per car, would inflate the base price substantially. Gregory mentioned, “Since the testing of the cars, the company knew that there was a problem with the gas tanks, but yet they ignored the problem to make sure that the product was out on the market on time”. The quality of most Japanese products usually was as low as their price. com, http://www. By ignoring the additional cost of $11 more for a safe tank, it cost Ford more in the long run if they would have if added the extra cost of installing the safer tank than ignoring the millions of dollars later. Before producing the Pinto, Ford crash-tested various prototypes, in part to learn whether they met a safety standard proposed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reduce fires from traffic collisions. Semon Knudsen argued that Ford should focus its attention on the more lucrative medium and larger vehicles. A particularly well-known story of product safety is that of the Ford Pinto. Entitled The Myth of the Ford Pinto Case, Schwartz patiently dispels, over 56 annotated pages, the idea that the Pinto was any more dangerous than the subcompacts it competed against at the time. Riding with her … Ford Motor Company 1. If you need this or any other sample, we Although the estimated price of these safety improvements ranged from only $5 to $8 per vehicle, Ford evidently reasoned that the increased cost outweighed the benefits of a new tank design. Ford assigned a team of engineers to work on nothing but the Pinto. Testing proved the Pinto was not the safest vehicle however Ford lobbied and argued that accidents and fatalities were an assumed risk of driving. Eager to have its subcompact ready for the 1971 model year, Ford decided to compress the normal drafting-board-to-showroom time of about three-and-a-half years into two. “Ford made an extremely irresponsible decision,” concludes auto safety expert Byron Bloch, “when they placed such a weak tank in such a ridiculous location in such a soft rear end.”. On August 10, 1978, eighteen-year-old Judy Ulrich, her sixteen-year-old sister Lynn, and their eighteen-year-old cousin Donna, in their 1973 Ford Pinto, were struck from the rear by a van near Elkhart, Indiana. This is a case involving the explosion of Ford Pinto's due to a defective fuel system design, the issue of questionable design and the use by Ford of a cost-benefit analysis to support their decision not to upgrade the fuel systems or recall the product. The company did not care for the safety of the people buying the cars, just the profits”, stated Robbin. Finding that the company had known that its “side-saddle” gas tanks which are mounted outside the rails of the truck’s frame, are dangerously prone to rupture, the jury awarded $4.2 million in actual damages and $101 million in punitive damages to Moseley’s parents. This mission still holds true today. Nevertheless, it illustrates the type of reasoning that was probably used in the Pinto case. From: Moral Issues in Business 8th ed. The Ford Pinto case is today considered a classic example of corporate wrong-doing and is a mainstay of courses in engineering ethics, business ethics, philosophy, and the sociology of white-collar crime. Events in the 1970s related to the Ford Pinto automobile illustrate some of the ethical issues related to technology and safety. NHTSA finally adopted a 30-mph collision standard in 1976. Please, specify your valid email address, Remember that this is just a sample essay and since it might not be original, we do not recommend to submit it. Further cases were brought against Ford throughout the 1970s, eventually resulting in the discontinuation of the Pinto line in the early 1980s. ? However, in my estimation, Ford management endangers the integrity of its own safety practices for the small sake of profit. There were various ways of making the Pinto’s gas tank safer. In the “Fatalities” report, Ford engineers estimated the cost of technical improvements that would prevent gas tanks from leaking in rollover accidents to be $11 per vehicle. 83-86). But by the late 1960s, an invasion of foreign-made goods chiseled a few worry lines into the countenance of the U.S. industry. Ford decided, however, not to change the position of the gas tank primarily in order to reduce production costs. Here is the aftermath of Ford’s decision: For its part, Ford has always denied that the Pinto is unsafe compared with other cars of its type and era. FOR ONLY $13.90/PAGE, The Ford Motor Company Supply Chain Management, The Majority of Escorts Associations are Incredibly Autonomous, Service to Others Is the Rent You Pay for Your Room Here on Earth, The Sharing Financial System Is Developing, Factors to Consider When Hiring a Family and Divorce Attorney, GET YOUR CUSTOM ESSAY In May 1972, Lily Gray was traveling with thirteen year old Richard Grimshaw in a 1972 Pinto when their car was struck by another car traveling approximately thirty miles per hour. Meanwhile, the Georgia Court of Appeals has thrown out the jury’s verdict in the Shannon Moseley case on a legal technicality–despite ruling that the evidence submitted in the case showed that GM was aware that the gas tanks were hazardous but did not try to make them safer to save the expenses involved. Case Analysis "Ford pinto" 1. Identify and write the main issues found discussed in the case (who, what, how, where and when (the critical facts in a case) On August 10, 1978, three high school young ladies ceased to refuel the … Business is concerned primarily with profit. Although Elwell had testified in more than fifteen previous cases that the pickups were safe, this time he switched sides and told the jury that the company had known for years that the side-saddle design was defective but had intentionally hidden its knowledge and had not attempted to correct the problem. The company also points out that in every model year the Pinto met or surpassed the government’s own standards. The success of the Mustang elevated Iacocca’s status and ideas and eventually forced Knudsen out. It was supposed to be the car that kept Ford abreast of the times. A 1979 landmark case, Indiana vs. Ford Motor Co., made the automaker the first U.S. corporation indicted and prosecuted on criminal homicide charges. In 1972, it estimated that society loses $200,725 every time a person is killed in an auto accident (adjusted for inflation, today’s figure would, of course, be considerably higher). Ford was credited with revolutionizing the muscle car era of the 1950’s and 1960’s. However, The case of Ford’s Pinto has been called “a manifestation of broad legal, social-structural, and ideological changes… leading to an increasing intolerance of white collar crime." HAVEN’T FOUND ESSAY YOU WANT? The Ford Pinto was completely engulfed in flames and the The prototypes all failed the 20-mph test. THE FORD PINTO CASE STUDY GROUP 1(1702293-302) CLASS M5 2. Sisters Judy and Lynn Ulrich (ages 18 and 16, respectively) and their cousin Donna Ulrich (age 18) were struck from the rear in their 1973 Ford Pinto by a van. The Pinto was marketed in three body styles through its production: a two-door … Still, GM has rejected requests to recall the pickups and repair them. Ford’s mission consists of the company relevant and profitable in the future. In the fire that resulted, the three teenagers were burned to death. © Michael Matteson and Chris Metivier 2021, Reading: Friedman – The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, Friedman’s Justification for Stockholder Theory, Reading: Freeman – Managing for Stakeholders, Module 3: Social Responsibility, Professionalism, and Loyalty, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Triple Bottom Line, Reading: Davis – Some Paradoxes of Whistle-Blowing, Reading: Duska – Whistle Blowing and Employee Loyalty, Reading: Arnold & Bustos – Business Ethics and Global Climate Change, Reading: Desjardins – Sustainability: Business’s New Environmental Obligation, Reading: Maitland – The Great Non-Debate over International Sweatshops, Reading: Arnold and Bowie – Sweatshops and Respect for Persons, Terrible Working Conditions and the Costs of Improvement, Module 6: Privacy, Property, and Technology, Reading: DeGeorge – Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Drugs, Case: Patents and the African AIDS Epidemic, Conflicting Rights and Ethical Intuitions, Reading: Arrington – Advertising and Behavior Control, Reading: Brenkert – Marketing and the Vulnerable, Case: Kraft foods Inc.: The Cost of Advertising on Children’s Waistlines, 180 burn deaths, 180 serious burn injuries, 2,100 burned vehicles, $200,000 per death, $67,000 per injury, $700 per vehicle, (180 X $200,000) + (180 X $67,000) + (2,100 X $700) =, 11 million cars, 1.5 million light trucks. Ford didn’t have any safety principles or organizational culture in regards to the American people only financial concerns of the American people. CASE 2.2 THE FORD PINTO Discussion Questions 1. gov/pubs/ada. website. In the ‘Ford Pinto Case Study’, it is very clear that the management of Ford and the engineers did not aim to produce an unsafe product, and that more than likely the result of their product primarily came from the speedy design and production schedule of the Ford Pinto. Furthermore, Ford’s critics claim that there were more than forty European and Japanese models in the Pinto price and weight range with safer gas-tank position. Regardless of these options, Ford decided not to mention the potential for death or harm to its customers or the general public. The Pinto was a car with a mission. By Larry Kramer September 14, 1978 The Ford Motor Co. was charged with three counts of reckless homicide and one count of criminal recklessness yesterday in … To earn a profit, a business produces goods or provides services and engages in buying and selling. But what the company doesn’t say is that successful lobbying by it and its industry associates was responsible for delaying for seven years the adoption of any NHTSA crash standard. Ford Pinto Fires Case Study and Executive Summary During the Late 1960’s the Ford Motor Company was one of the leading auto manufactures in the United States. Ford officials faced a decision. Even though this would have caused more time and money, the management of the company would not have been compromised by the company’s ethics. 348) was a personal injury tort case decided in Orange County, California in February 1978 and affirmed by a California appellate court in May 1981. The judge reduced punitive damages to 3.5 million. Ford pinto full details and analysis report with references 1. Hi there, would you like to get such a paper? Ford not only pushed ahead with the original design but stuck to it for the next six years. The success of the Mustang elevated Iacocca’s status and ideas and eventually forced Knudsen out. By 1980, a range of Pintos was available. INTRODUCTION • Demand for sub-compact cars • Designed in May of 1968 by the vice-president of Ford Motor Company, Lee Iacocca • Weighed 2000 pounds, cost $2000 and manufactured in 2 years 2 3. Driving a 1973 Ford Pinto to their church volleyball practice in Goshen, Indiana, they were struck from behind by a Chevrolet van. “The Ford Motor Company just wanted to stay ahead of the game, from Japan and Germany. Some observers thought not when, in February 1993, an Atlanta jury held the General Motors Corporation responsible for the death of a Georgia teenager in the fiery crash of one of its pickup trucks. The conventional account of the case goes something like this: We don’t know for sure, but an internal report, “Fatalities Associated with Crash-Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires,” reveals the cost-benefit reasoning that the company used in cases like this. Ford Pinto Case Study Summary 962 Words4 Pages 1. Ford was looking to stay ahead of the game in the small car industry so that it didn’t lose out to the German or Japanese vehicles. can send it to you via email. Should they go ahead with the existing design, thereby meeting the production timetable but possibly jeopardizing consumer safety? Fords reluctance to do so was possibly due to the potential negative reaction the Pinto may have received from the general public During the 1970’s the mission was to make smaller cars that were affordable for the American people and to stay ahead of the German and Japanese small cars. The Ethical Dilemma in the Ford Pinto Case On August 10, 1978 three young girls died in a 1973 Ford Pinto after being stuck from the rear by a driver in a van. There was a time when the “made in Japan” label brought a predictable smirk of superiority to the face of most Americans. In an effort to produce a stylish but affordable subcompact automobile with a low operating cost, Ford Motor Company management made a questionable decision regarding the positioning of and protection for the fuel tank. During a time period in which the government safety standards of today were not in place, Ford was not obligated to stick to the safety standards in question regarding the Ford Pinto. FORD PINTO OUTLINE • INTRODUCTION • STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM • FACTS OF THE CASE • CASE ANALYSIS • CASE RESOLUTION The Ford Pinto is a front-engine, rear-drive subcompact car manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company for model years 1971-1980. In this case, the Pinto was an unethical decision based on the potential small car market from foreign automobile makers, especially Germany and Japan.
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