Honda Gets New Trial After Remark

A $1.5-million verdict against Torrance-based American Honda Motor Co. was thrown out by New Hampshire’s Supreme Court because of inflammatory anti-Japanese remarks by an opposing lawyer. Honda and the operator of one of its all-terrain vehicles had been ordered in 1994 to pay $2.1 million for injuries suffered by Thomas LeBlanc. LeBlanc’s leg was severely injured in 1988, when a snowmobile on which he was a passenger collided with a Honda Odyssey, a now-discontinued, one-person vehicle. It bears no resemblance to Honda’s current Odyssey minivan. During closing arguments, LeBlanc’s lawyer, Vincent C. Martina, told the jury the case was not about “Pearl Harbor or the Japanese prime minister saying Americans are lazy and stupid.”