Texas

Guardrail Maker to pay $663M For Not Revealing Design Change

Update to an NBC 6 Investigation From November 2014

The maker of many of the guardrails that line the streets of South Florida and the entire country has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

A whistleblower filed a lawsuit against Texas-based guardrail maker Trinity Industries Inc.

The company changed the dimensions of a popular guardrail and never told the federal government about the change as required by law.

The whistleblower says those cost saving changes can cause the guardrails to injure accident victims instead of protecting them.

A federal judge ruled in the whistleblower's favor, ordering the company to pay $464 million to the federal government and another $218 million to the whistleblower.

Trinity Industries says the judgment should be thrown out. A spokesperson for the company said, "We believe the evidence clearly shows that no fraud was committed."

To see NBC 6's original investigation and the possible dangers due to the changes to the guardrails, click here.

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