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Press &
Guide
A Heritage Newspaper
Twice Weekly
Publication

Dearborn man earns award for helping consumers

By Karen M. Scally, Press & Guide Newspapers

PUBLISHED: July 6,
2005

DEARBORN - When Dearborn resident
Paul Sheridan heard he was being selected as one of 2005's Civil
Justice Foundation Champions, an award given to those who make a
difference to consumers in the United States, he said he wouldn't
let himself react.

Advertisement

Sheridan, who is called a
whistleblower of defects in DaimlerChrysler's minivan-latch design,
said his lack of reaction to the honor was not because he was
ungrateful or uninterested.

He said there was just no time to react; he simply had more work
to do.

"I let my sister react for me," Sheridan said.

When he travels to Toronto to receive the award on Tuesday, July
26, Sheridan will join two other recipients the foundation has
selected as 2005's servants for the public consumer.

One of them is former senator and 2004 vice presidential
candidate John Edwards for his family advocacy work; the other is
Father Thomas Patrick Doyle, a voice for sexually abused children in
the Catholic clergy scandal.

Sheridan also joins a list of well-known whistleblowers and
victims' advocates honored by the Civil Justice Foundation,
including Erin Brockovich, known for her work in exposing toxic
chemicals in one Californian community's water which an Academy
Award-winning movie was based on; Tom Mauser, whose son was killed
at Columbine; and Tim and Helen Rusberg, whose daughter Amy Lynn
Boyer was killed by an internet stalker.

What exactly is it that Sheridan did, heralding him among
advocacy greats?

It all started about a decade ago when he got fired from
DaimlerChrysler where he spearheaded the Minivan Safety Leadership
Team.

For about two years prior, since 1992, Sheridan had been
assessing safety aspects of his company's minivans. Specifically,
his team was trying to address their findings of a safety defect
with the rear liftgate latch.

Sheridan said his bosses didn't like what they were hearing; they
didn't want to be bothered with fixing the problem.

He decided peoples' lives were not worth the risk of letting this
defect go without correction, so he told his employers he was going
to the feds.

DaimlerChrysler's response to Sheridan's decision was to clear
out his office while he was on a Christmas vacation, sue him and get
a judge-issued muzzle order on him to restrict him from talking
further.

He still did not let that stop him. At that point, deaths had
already occurred from people being ejected out the back of the vans
during minor collisions because the latch had failed.

In the Civil Justice Foundation's letter to Sheridan notifying
him of his award, they observed that "despite the fact that Chrysler
disbanded the Safety Leadership Team and tried to intimidate you
into silence about the defects in those vehicles and others, you
persisted in telling the truth about what you knew."

Sheridan took his knowledge to the media and to the witness
stand, serving the public by providing expert testimony for the
plaintiffs in suits against DaimlerChrysler where the latch defect
lead to deaths.

After his testimony helped contribute to a plaintiff win in the
1997 case of Jimenez vs. DaimlerChrysler, where a 6-year-old boy was
killed in South Carolina after being ejected from his mother's van,
DaimlerChrysler dropped their suit against him.

Since that time, he has used his testimony in more than 150
successful plaintiff wins.

The three winners were selected from a pool of 15,000
nominations, Sheridan said.

Press & Guide, Heritage
Newspapers Twice Weekly Publication
http://www.pressandguide.com/

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