“While our sympathies are with the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by evidence, and we plan to appeal,” Ford said in a statement.
“While our sympathies are with the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by evidence, and we plan to appeal,” Ford said in a statement.
Ford Motor Co. plans to appeal a $1.7 billion judgment against the automaker after a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, a company representative said Sunday.
Lawyer James Butler Jr. said Sunday that jurors from Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, late last week returned a verdict in a year-long civil case in which plaintiffs’ lawyers found dangerously faulty Ford pickup trucks. Said roofs.
Melvin and Vonsil Hill were killed in the rollover wreckage of their 2002 Ford F-250 in April 2014. Their children Kim and Adam Hill were plaintiffs in the wrongful death case.
“While our sympathies are with the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by evidence, and we plan to appeal,” Ford said in a statement. The Associated Press on Sunday.
Mr Butler said he was shocked by the evidence in the case.
“I used to buy Ford trucks,” Mr Butler said on Sunday. “I thought no one would sell a truck with such a weak roof. The damn thing sucks in a wreck. You can even drive a convertible.”
In closing arguments, company-appointed attorneys defended the actions of Ford and its engineers.
The Michigan-based automaker sought to defend the company against allegations that “Ford and its engineers made these decisions about roof strength intentionally and ruthlessly with a conscious indifference to the safety of the people riding in their cars.” acted,” defense attorney William Withrow Jr. said in his closing arguments, according to a court transcript.
Paul Malek, another defense attorney, said in the same closing argument that the allegation that Ford was irresponsible and that decisions that put customers at risk were intentional “just not so”.
Butler’s law firm Butler Prather LLP said in a statement that attorneys for the plaintiffs presented evidence of nearly 80 identical rollover wrecks that crushed truck roofs, injuring or killing motorists.
“More deaths and serious injuries are certain as millions of these trucks are on the road,” Butler’s co-lawyer Gerald Davidson said in the statement.
“The award of punitive damages for hopefully warning people aboard the millions of trucks sold by Ford was the reason the Hill family insisted on a decision,” Mr Butler said.