V
Vincent Garcia
Guest
h company from new mexico was to receive 132 sofas from a furniture store in st. louis, missouri to the tucson international airport in tuscon arizona. the manager of the furn. store thought it was cheaper to remove the stuffing and then replace the stuffing at tucson. the supplier at tucson used dried cactus as part of the filling and forgot to remove the cactus needles before processing, and ouch the sofas were quite painful. the problem was not discovered until after the sofas were delivered to the airport, where weary travelers sat on the sofas. result - there is now legislation pending in the arizona legislatue forbidding the use of dried, processed cactus in sofas, the u.s. dept. of trnsportation is considering issuing regulations requiring all sofas sold as new to be shipped w/the factory-installed stuffing, and presently there are lawsuits being threatened by airline passengers, the tucson international airport, and the furniture store. my questions - was there a problem with the original idea? would there have been a problem if the needles had been removed, the sofas restuffed and the delivery complete? if there is a suit what would be the process? what are the possible locations for the lawsuit depending on who sues, the pre-trial process, what will happen at the trial, and what options are there if the trial goes against the company? if the company does not want to go to trial, are there alternatives? what are they? how do they work? what are the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative? arizona is the main supplier of dried cactus in the u.s. pending legislation would kill that industry and force sofa manufactures to use more expensive products. what is the process that must be followed for the proposal to outlaw cactus in sofas to become law? it is common practice in the sofa transportation industry to unstuff and restuff sofas for shipping in bulk. until now there had been no problem. the department of transportation proposed regulations will change how the industry works. can they do this? if so, what is the process and at what point can the company from n.m. try to impact this process? if they do make the rules change, what could happen to companies who ignore the the new rule?