Ford logo.Photo: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty
Ford Motor Co. has announced plans to appeal a verdict ordering the company to pay $1.7 billion to the family of a Georgia couple killed while driving one of their vehicles.
The verdict was reached late last week after the deceased’s children, Adam and Kim Hill, sued the motor-vehicle corporation over the 2014 rollover crash, which killed their parents Melvin and Voncile Hill.
The siblings claimed in court that a weak and defective roof on their parent’s 2002 Ford F-250 directly contributed to their deaths, theAssociated Pressreported Monday.
Lawyers for the family also submitted evidence that similar defective roofs were responsible for injury or death in around 80 other cases, AP added.
Ford dealership.Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty
“More deaths and severe injuries are certain because millions of these trucks are on the road,” Gerald Davidson from the Hill’s lawyers, Butler Prather LLP, said in a statement, reported AP.
“An award of punitive damages to hopefully warn people riding around in the millions of those trucks Ford sold was the reason the Hill family insisted on a verdict,” added his colleague James Butler Jr.
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In response, Ford’s lawyer William Withrow Jr. said during a Wednesday court session that the company was set on defending itself against accusations that “its engineers acted willfully and wantonly, with a conscious indifference for the safety of the people who ride in their cars when they made these decisions about roof strength,” read acourt transcript.
“That’s not true, and we wanted a chance to put our case to you, and you’ve patiently listened to it. And we don’t think that they’ve made that case in their presentation today,” Withrow added.
As such, Butler Prather LLP put 30% of the blame on Pep Boys, per NBC News, and alleged, “That mistake caused the right front tire to blow out, causing the wreck.”
Butler Jr. said Sunday that he “used to buy Ford trucks” and “thought nobody would sell a truck with a roof this weak,” reported multiple outlets includingABC News.
“The damn thing is useless in a wreck,” he added. “You might as well drive a convertible.”
source: people.com
