WOODSTOCK, Ga. – Ford Motor Co. plans to attraction a $1.7 billion verdict in opposition to the automaker after a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, a corporation guide acknowledged Sunday.
Jurors in Gwinnett County, merely northeast of Atlanta, returned the choice late ultimate week inside the years prolonged civil case involving what the plaintiffs’ attorneys often known as dangerously defective roofs on Ford pickup automobiles, lawyer James Butler Jr. acknowledged Sunday.
Melvin and Voncile Hill had been killed in April 2014 inside the rollover wreck of their 2002 Ford F-250. Their children Kim and Adam Hill had been the plaintiffs inside the wrongful dying case.
“Whereas our sympathies exit to the Hill household, we don’t consider the decision is supported by the proof, and we plan to attraction,” Ford acknowledged in a press launch to The Related Press on Sunday.
Butler acknowledged he was shocked by proof inside the case.
“I used to purchase Ford vans,” Butler acknowledged on Sunday. “I believed 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 company defended the actions of Ford and its engineers.
The Michigan-based automaker sought to defend the company in opposition to accusations “that Ford and its engineers acted willfully and wantonly, with a aware indifference for the security of the individuals who trip of their automobiles after they made these selections about roof power,” safety lawyer William Withrow Jr. acknowledged in his closing arguments, based mostly on a courtroom transcript.
The allegation that Ford was irresponsible and willfully made selections that put prospects in peril is “merely not the case,” one different safety lawyer, Paul Malek, acknowledged within the an identical closing argument.
Legal professionals for the plaintiffs had submitted proof of virtually 80 associated rollover wrecks that involved truck roofs being crushed that injured or killed motorists, Butler’s regulation company, Butler Prather LLP, acknowledged in a press launch.
“Extra deaths and extreme accidents are sure as a result of hundreds of thousands of those vans are on the highway,” Butler’s co-counsel, Gerald Davidson, acknowledged inside the assertion.
“An award of punitive damages to hopefully warn folks driving round within the hundreds of thousands of these vans Ford offered was the explanation the Hill household insisted on a verdict,” Butler acknowledged.
