Suzuki Motor Corp. v. Consumers Union of U.S. was a 1996 lawsuit initiated by Suzuki of North America against Consumers Union, filed eight years after their magazine Consumer Reports gave a very unfavorable and much disputed review of the Suzuki Samurai, deeming the Samurai "not acceptable" in their ratings. Consumer Reports driving tests and review The compact SUV Suzuki Samurai gained a reputation in the U.S. market of being an unsafe car and prone to a rollover after Consumer Reports, the magazine arm of Consumers Union, reported that during a 1988 test on the short course avoidance maneuver (Consumer Union Short Course Double Lane Change, or CUSC for short), the Samurai experienced what they deemed as an unacceptable amount of tipover while undertaking the severe turn. The behavior which CU deemed unacceptable stemmed from the sudden swerve simulation part of the test where, for example, a car backs out of a driveway or drives forward from a side street or intersection and into traffic, causing the driver to suddenly swerve to avoid hitting the object that is obstructing the driver's path. The unacceptable tipover behavior occurred after the standard course was modified to induce the tipover behavior, which did not occur while experienced drivers utilized the standard course. CU staff were attempting to replicate an unintentional Samurai roll-over incident, involving a CU staff member, which had occurred previously during the evaluation of the Samurai. There were claims made by Suzuki that CU put the Samurai through an abnormal series of tests in an effort to roll the car. The dispute and eventual lawsuit stemmed from the CR statement easily rolls over in turns, which CR attributed to the sudden swerve test and was not meant to generally apply to the Samurai in respect to other tests that CR undertakes to simulate normal routine driving such as 0-60 mph acceleration and stopping. The use of the adverb easily may have been misconstrued or misunderstood by others to indicate that the Samurai was inherently an unsafe car prone to roll-overs in any sort of driving conditions. In 1996, Consumers Union proclaimed that Suzuki saw "Samurai sales dwindle away" as a result of the 1988 review. Lawsuit Suzuki hired Failure Analysis Associates (FaAA, now Exponent) to perform the initial investigation on the roll-over problem. FaAA was critical of Consumers Union's testing procedure and indicated other factors such as the type of tires and