Photo: Ford
Ford has been ordered to pay a gigantic $1.7 billion settlement by a jury in Georgia, with regards to an old case from 2014 where a couple lost their lives in a pickup truck crash.
Georgia couple Melvin and Voncile Hill were killed in April of 2014 when their 2002 Ford F-250 truck rolled over. The couple’s children, Kim and Adam Hill, sued Ford claiming that the roofs on their pickup trucks were “dangerously defective.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, as part of Butler Prather LLP, submitted evidence of nearly 80 similar rollover incidents that showed Ford trucks with their roofs crushed - resulting in serious injuries and even loss of lives, as reported by Reuters.
“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,” said Butler, as quoted by AP.
According to closing arguments made by defense attorney William Withrow Jr, the carmaker had to defend itself from accusations “that Ford and 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.”
Of course, Ford will appeal this $1.7 billion verdict, claiming a lack of evidence against their old Super Duty models.
“While our sympathies go out to the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by the evidence, and we plan to appeal,” said the carmaker in a statement to The Associated Press this past weekend.
Meanwhile, Butler himself appeared to be shocked by all the evidence in the case: “I used to buy Ford trucks. I thought nobody would sell a truck with a roof this weak. The damn thing is useless in a wreck. You might as well drive a convertible.”
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, as part of Butler Prather LLP, submitted evidence of nearly 80 similar rollover incidents that showed Ford trucks with their roofs crushed - resulting in serious injuries and even loss of lives, as reported by Reuters.
“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,” said Butler, as quoted by AP.
According to closing arguments made by defense attorney William Withrow Jr, the carmaker had to defend itself from accusations “that Ford and 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.”
Of course, Ford will appeal this $1.7 billion verdict, claiming a lack of evidence against their old Super Duty models.
“While our sympathies go out to the Hill family, we do not believe the verdict is supported by the evidence, and we plan to appeal,” said the carmaker in a statement to The Associated Press this past weekend.
Meanwhile, Butler himself appeared to be shocked by all the evidence in the case: “I used to buy Ford trucks. I thought nobody would sell a truck with a roof this weak. The damn thing is useless in a wreck. You might as well drive a convertible.”
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