ORLANDO, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - The family of a Florida truck driver who died in an accident is suing Bridgestone, blaming one of his tires for his death.
The wife and two children of Jason Garcia Rivera on March 25 filed suit in Orange County Circuit Court against Bridgestone and All Truck Center Orlando. The tire was installed as a steer tire on the right front of Garcia's 2012 Freightliner Cascadia on April 28, 2020.
Garcia was on Interstate 75 when the tire blew apart, the suit says. Garcia was forced onto the shoulder, then struck a concrete drainage ditch and a tree.
The suit blames Garcia's death on All Truck Center for selling him the tire and mounting it. The company "knew or should have known that it was dangerously defective due to its propensity for a tread belt separation, which was inherent in the design of the subject tire," the suit says.
The tire is a Bridgestone R268 Ecopia made during the second week of 2019.
The plaintiffs are represented by J. Blaise Fischbach and Andrew Knopf of Paul Knopf Bigger in Winter Park.