A Georgia jury has returned a $1.7 billion verdict towards Ford Motor Co. involving a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, their attorneys confirmed.
Ford Motor Co. plans to enchantment the decision, an organization consultant mentioned Sunday.
Jurors in Gwinnett County, simply northeast of Atlanta, returned the decision late final week within the years-long civil case involving what the plaintiffs' attorneys known as dangerously faulty roofs on Ford pickup vehicles, lawyer James Butler Jr. mentioned Sunday.
Melvin and Voncile Hill had been killed in April 2014 within the rollover wreck of their 2002 Ford F-250. Their kids Kim and Adam Hill had been the plaintiffs within the wrongful dying case.
"Whereas our sympathies exit to the Hill household, we don't imagine the decision is supported by the proof, and we plan to enchantment," Ford mentioned in a press release to The Related Press on Sunday.
F-250's roof power
Butler mentioned he was surprised by proof within the case.
"I used to purchase Ford vehicles," Butler mentioned on Sunday. "I assumed no person would promote a truck with a roof this weak. The rattling factor is ineffective in a wreck. You may as properly drive a convertible."
In closing arguments, attorneys employed by the corporate defended the actions of Ford and its engineers.
The Michigan-based automaker pushed again towards accusations "that Ford and its engineers acted willfully and wantonly, with a acutely aware indifference for the security of the individuals who experience of their vehicles once they made these selections about roof power," protection lawyer William Withrow Jr. mentioned in his closing arguments, in keeping with a courtroom transcript.
The allegation that Ford was irresponsible and willfully made selections that put prospects in danger is "merely not the case," one other protection lawyer, Paul Malek, mentioned in the identical closing argument.
Legal professionals for the plaintiffs had submitted proof of practically 80 comparable rollover wrecks that concerned truck roofs being crushed that injured or killed motorists, Butler's legislation agency, Butler Prather LLP, mentioned in a press release.
"Extra deaths and extreme accidents are sure as a result of hundreds of thousands of those vehicles are on the highway," Butler's co-counsel, Gerald Davidson, mentioned within the assertion.
"An award of punitive damages to hopefully warn folks using round within the hundreds of thousands of these vehicles Ford offered was the explanation the Hill household insisted on a verdict," Butler mentioned.