Sealed, Confidential Documents Hide Fraud, Allow Deaths to Continue
On November 1, 2016, my daughter, Hannah Eimers was driving to school with a friend in Tennessee. She never made it. At just 17, she was brutally speared by a highway guardrail called ‘X-Lite’ produced by the Lindsay Corporation. My daughter was eviscerated but Hannah’s friend walked away without a scratch. Tennessee had banned the X-Lite BEFORE Hannah’s crash.
Forcing Victims Into Being Co-Conspirators
I have a confession to make, I am now a co-conspirator with the Lindsay Corporation in their fraud and we are continuing to kill people. After Hannah died, over 200,000 pages of documents were produced in her wrongful death case and every single page was marked confidential. If I tell you what is in there I will be held in civil and possibly criminal contempt of court and my other 9 children could be left fatherless.
Reuters has documented how companies abuse protective orders to hide deadly defects. Protective orders were used by Purdue Pharmacy to conceal the deadly malice of its opioid peddlers. Merck used a protective order to conceal the dangers of a popular drug. Yamaha used protective orders to hide that their Rhino off-road-vehicle was unstable and had killed 40 people.
Victims go along with this system because they are unfamiliar with the legal system and follow the advice of their legal counsel. Sadly, Reuters has documented that many plaintiff’s attorneys are willing collaborators with this scheme. Plaintiff attorneys often want to conceal what is known and hide the defects so another attorney does not steal the revenue stream created by a steady string of dead victims.
A View Into Lindsay’s Discovery
What is in the 200,000 pages of documents produced by the Lindsay Corporation? I can’t tell you but the actions of the State of Missouri speak volumes regarding the contents. In February, 2017 a man named George Jansen was fatally speared by an X-Lite.
During litigation involving Jansen’s death Missouri obtained these documents which led them to file a lawsuit against the X-Lite entities in 2020. Missouri’s review of these documents caused them conclude that Lindsay had concealed information and testing that X-Lite was “defective” and that Lindsay knew that X-Lite was “unreasonably dangerous”.
Missouri found that X-Lite “…increased, rather than decreased, the chance of property damage, personal injury, and death”.
Most astonishingly, Missouri’s review of these documents showed Lindsay committed fraud. Missouri states “The Defendants misrepresented the results of the NCHRP 350 crash testing for the purpose of making prospective purchasers believe that the X-Lite System functioned safely and as designed”. Missouri states that Lindsay committed this fraud “…for the purpose of increasing their sales and generating revenue without regard for the safety or wellbeing of the public”.
Lindsay’s Mistake Lets the Cat Out of the Bag
On 6/30/2021 Lindsay filed Document 144–6 on the Federal court docket of my daughter Hannah’s wrongful death case. This was an unredacted version of an expert report created by MIT Professor Dr. Marthinus van Schoor. Immediately, Lindsay filed multiples emergency motions to re-seal this document and conceal their fraud. Their motions even admit that the exposure of the truth would harm their company.
Before Lindsay could conceal this document many people were able to download it. What did Lindsay want to hide? For starters X-Lite was brought to market to replace another terminal with a perfect performance record but it was “too costly”. A 2009 email shows X-Lite was envisioned by Lindsay as “very inexpensive” guardrail end terminal “…for the undeveloped countries”.
Lindsay also sought to hide numerous catastrophic failures in their original 2010 crash testing including multiple spearings of the passenger compartment. This photo shows Lindsay knew from the very beginning that X-Lite was going to spear and kill innocent people.
Lindsay concealed simulations which proved in 2013 that X-Lite would spear vehicles and a 2015 email warning that simulations showed X-Lite did not stop vehicles in a “controlled way” and that “…post impact trajectory could be unstable”.
Perhaps most stunning, Lindsay sought to conceal that on three separate occasions, in response to performance concerns/ spearings from State DOTs, they ran and catastrophically failed crash tests. These three hidden 2015/ 2016 crash tests confirmed the original performance concern and Lindsay concealed them from State DOT decisionmakers.
The Spearing X-Lite Deaths and Dismemberments Continue Unabated
Since my daughter was speared by an X-Lite dozens of others have been speared. These crashes have cut victims in half, decapitated them, and even completely obliterated the victims.
I have spoken out repeatedly using publicly available information and this has led 18 State DOTs and 4 Provincial DOTs to replace over $100 million in defective X-Lite guardrail end terminals. I regularly scour court dockets, download data, and file public records requests to find more documents.
I will continue speaking out but State DOTs, Provincial DOTs, US Department of Transportation, and the public deserve to know what is in these files. Attorney General Merrick Garland should direct the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation and to file a subpoena and demand all the documents that the victims are prevented from sharing. Missouri has reviewed these documents and declared X-Lite a “public nuisance” and stated that “But for Defendants’ misrepresentations, the X-Lite System would never have been approved for use on Missouri Roadways.”
My daughter and dozens of other are dead. There is credible evidence that Lindsay conspired to defraud the Government of the United States and that Lindsay knew they were going to kill people. The Department of Justice cannot simply look the other way and let others continue to die. The Department of Justice cannot just do nothing and deny my daughter and these other families Justice.
