No apology

Simpson to sue NASCAR for $8.5 million Wednesday

Bill Simpson was prepared to drop the lawsuit over NASCAR's findings in Dale Earnhardt's death if NASCAR had offered an apology. AP

By Mike Fish, CNNSI.com

After unsuccessfully trying to extract an apology Tuesday from NASCAR, embattled seat-belt maker Bill Simpson and his attorneys told CNNSI.com they intend to file an $8.5 million defamation lawsuit against the sanctioning body Wednesday morning in Indianapolis.

Attorneys for the parties spoke throughout much of Tuesday before breaking off talks late in the afternoon. By that time, the clerk's office in Marion County Superior Court had closed, but Simpson attorneys Robert Horn and James Voyles expect to return first thing Wednesday morning.

Simpson also is likely to be the sole party bringing the suit, as ownership of his former company decided Tuesday not to participate in the legal action.

Horn said Simpson was prepared to drop the suit Tuesday if NASCAR would have offered a formal apology.

"All the talks were about trying to get them to give us an apology," Horn said. "That is what we would have accepted, and they weren't willing to do that."

Instead, the defamation lawsuit that is prepared will ask for damages totaling more than $8.5 million, including $6 million for loss of business advantage and $2.5 million for loss of profits and earnings.

Simpson believes NASCAR made him a scapegoat in the accident that killed seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt. The crash occurred almost a year ago on the final lap of the Daytona 500.

The racing-equipment manufacturer has said he received death threats and saw his employees harassed after NASCAR announced last Feb. 23 -- five days after the fatal wreck -- that it had found a broken Simpson lap belt in Earnhardt's crashed No. 3 Chevrolet.

At the core of the dispute is the news conference in Rockingham, N.C., where Dr. Steve Bohannon, director of emergency medical services at Daytona International Speedway, appeared with top NASCAR officials, offering a theory that the belt failure might have contributed to Earnhardt's fatal head injuries. The announcement shifted focus to the possible belt failure.

Simpson has remained vociferous in his criticism of NASCAR hierarchy ever since the announcement, believing he was used as a scapegoat to conceal the sanctioning body's lack of attention to safety issues.

Last July, Simpson quit the day-to-day management post of the company he founded in 1958. His resignation came four years after selling majority interest to Charlotte, N.C.-based Carousel Capital, headed by Nelson Schwab. Yet Simpson still holds 33 percent ownership in Simpson Performance Products.

Simpson told CNNSI.com in July that his resignation was fallout from the lingering dispute with NASCAR.

"It's just the fact that I've been drug through what I have been drug through," Simpson said during the July interview in Indianapolis. "I know in my heart that I have done nothing wrong or my company has done nothing wrong. You can't imagine what we have gone through. ... It's not just me, my company. It's righteously screwed my company up. It's affected all my employees. It has affected me.

"I mean, the guy [Earnhardt] was a friend of mine for a long, long time. ... We did a lot of stuff together. He came to my ranch in Wyoming, and hung out there. He was a friend."

Simpson has insisted belt failure wasn't a factor in Earnhardt's death, and his experts maintain the safety belts should not fail when properly installed.

Dr. Barry Myers, an independent expert, concluded last summer that even if the lap belt broke during Earnhardt's crash, it happened after the occurrence of the fatal injury.

A report prepared by NASCAR's experts last August, however, failed to rule out seat-belt failure. Simpson and his attorneys were also upset that their separate findings were not included in the NASCAR report.

The lawsuit is likely to request a jury trial, and presumably the filing in Indianapolis is a strategic maneuver. Because it is headquartered in Daytona, with a Charlotte office, the presumption is NASCAR might enjoy a home-court advantage if the case were to be heard in Florida or North Carolina.

 

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