A Georgia jury has ordered Ford to pay more than $US47 million to the family of a young girl who was partially paralysed after a fold-down seat collapsed in a 2000 crash but the carmaker plans an appeal.
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According to Reuters, in a judgment issued in Fulton County Superior Court on Wednesday, a jury ordered Ford to pay nearly $14 million in punitive damages to Rhonda Sasser and her daughter, Kelsey, because of “conscious indifference” to safety concerns in her 2000 Lincoln LS luxury sedan.
The same jury reportedly awarded the family almost $34 million on Tuesday as compensation for pain, expenses and permanently altered life suffered as a result of a crash in southwest Georgia in the summer of 2000.
“Her mother is a single mom and just delighted for the child,” Andrew Scherffius, one of the lawyers representing the Sassers, told Reuters, adding: “But the child is a paraplegic and there is nothing good to be said about that.”
Rhonda Sasser’s lawsuit claimed Ford knew about a defective safety latch that allowed some rear fold-down seats in its sedan to collapse during crashes, the news agency noted.
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By GlobalDataThe seats were designed to fold from the upright position to make room for long items such as skis. One of these seats collapsed on Kelsey Sasser in the summer of 2000 after a collision with a pickup truck, Reuters added.
The girl, who was six at the time, reportedly was left paralysed from the chest down.
Reuters said the plaintiffs’ lawyers told jurors Ford knew of design problems with the safety latch as early as 1993 and changed its design on 2001 models of the sedan, but did not recall the 2000 model.
Ford plans to appeal the jury’s decision, the report said.
“This tragedy occurred because the driver lost control of her vehicle with a child improperly restrained in the front seat,” Ford said in a statement cited by Reuters.
