The 4th District Court of Appeals has upheld an $82.6 million award given to a woman whose back was crushed when her Ford Explorer flipped in 2002. $55 million is for punitive damages. Ford plans to appeal this latest ruling. Ford Motor Co. attorney, Theodore Boutrous Jr. states that the company does not believe punitive damages should be awarded, or should be significantly reduced. Punitive damages are given to punish defendants, and hopefully deter others who might behave similarly.
The Accident
Benetta Buell-Wilson’s accident happened while she was driving a 1997 Ford Explorer and swerved to avoid something in the road. A passenger side wheel lifted off the road, which caused the SUV to fishtail and then flip. It rolled four and a half times, landed on its roof, which crumpled and crushed Buell-Wilson’s back midway up her spine.
Buell-Wilson filed a suit alleging the Ford Explorer has a design flaw. Its high center of gravity and low wheelbase, which Buell-Wilson and her lawyer says makes the SUV prone to tipping, as well as its weak roof are at the center of the lawsuit. Buell-Wilson and her lawyer also claim that Ford knew of the design flaw but did nothing to fix it. In 2004, a San Diego court awarded Buell-Wilson and her husband $369 million, of which $246 million was for punitive damages. This was the first time a verdict was rendered in a Ford Explorer rollover case. Ford had won at least 12 times before in similar cases.
A judge lowered the amount to $150 million, $75 million punitive, two months after Buell-Wilson was awarded the $369 million verdict. The judge in the case further stated that there was evidence to support the jury’s findings that Ford knew about the design defects, but did nothing to correct them. This amount was then cut to $82.6 million in 2006 because the punitive damages were found by the court to be excessive and violated a stated law’s ban on lawsuits that are filed due to “passion or prejudice.”
Verdict Rendered in Anger?
Is $369 million an excessive amount to award to someone for injuries suffered when their SUV flips? This might fall into the realm of defective products, and defective products should be recalled so that they can be fixed. However, the Ford Explorer is an extremely popular vehicle, and trying to pull all those SUVs off the roads would have been very expensive for the company. This was a problem with the design, and not simply a matter of replacing a wire or two in the engine. Therefore, Ford decided it was in their best interest to keep these SUVs on the road and hope for the best. Ford isn’t the only company who makes SUVs, and many of these companies are finding that design flaws are causing many of their SUVs to rollover.
When large companies like Ford fight cases like this, whittling down $369 million to $82.6 million, they seem to show just where their compassion lies. If Buell-Wilson’s accident was an isolated case, then maybe the lawsuit wouldn’t have gotten very far. But there are other cases where the Explorer flipped and injured other people. This just happens to be the one where a jury decided Ford needed to pay. And they can probably afford it, too.
While punitive damages seem to be the place where Ford is really fighting, in order to avoid the appearance of being “punished,” they also say that the award should be “significantly reduced,” and not eliminated completely. That seems to show that they are tacitly admitting that the Ford Explorer’s design may have been a partial cause for Buell-Wilson’s injuries.
If you, or a loved one, have suffered injuries due to a defective product, please contact an experienced injury lawyer to discuss your options.
