The Defendant Announced a Recall Mid-Case. What Do You Say?

A recall is a public record, and you may say what it says. What you may not do is say what it proves. The recall notice is written by the manufacturer to close the story: the problem is identified, the fix is under way, customers should take one step. Your account is the timeline the notice leaves out, as alleged in your complaint: what the company knew, when it knew it, and what it did in between. That timeline is already in your filing, and it is the only thing worth saying.

What the recall notice is doing

Three things. It gives reporters a complete, calm story with a beginning, a middle and an end, on the day the company chooses. It puts the company in the role of the party that acted. And it frames the harm as a defect that has now been handled, rather than a decision that was made. A manufacturer’s recall statement is written to be the last word. Yours should be what reopens the question.

What to say in the first hour

Point to the complaint and to the dates in it. If the complaint alleges the company had reports of the problem two years before the notice, that is the sentence, and it is already a public filing. Give the reporter the notice and the complaint side by side and let the gap speak. Do not say the recall is an admission; counsel will tell you why, and the trial publicity rule’s comment on inadmissible evidence is where that sentence lives. Do not predict what the recall means for the case. Say what the record says, and stop.

What to do for the claimants

Many of them will hear about the recall from the news before they hear from anyone on the case, and some will conclude it changes their claim, in either direction. A plain-language update the same day, through counsel, that says what the recall is, what it is not, and that nothing about their case has changed today, is the difference between a group that stays calm and one that floods the intake line.

What I watch for next

A recall announcement is often followed within days by paid search on the product name, a facts page on the corporate site, and ads in the markets where the cases are filed, all built around the recall language. That is the moment to check what is running against the case, because the notice is the opening move of a longer operation, not the end of one. Auto defect communications → The defendant’s statement is out. What can you say? →