Ford settled dozens of truck-rollover lawsuits before $1.7 billion verdict

AP
AP

Summary

  • Auto maker, expected to argue Monday for new trial in Georgia case, says its millions of Super Duty trucks are safe

Ford Motor Co. is slated Monday to lay out its arguments for a new trial in a truck-rollover lawsuit that resulted in a $1.7 billion jury verdict in Georgia over the summer.

The Georgia lawsuit, in state court, is unusual in that it went to trial. Over nearly two decades, Ford settled several dozen similar lawsuits brought by plaintiffs alleging that people were killed or seriously injured in heavy-duty truck rollovers in which the roof collapsed.

At issue has been the roof strength of older-model Super Duty pickups sold by the company over a roughly 17-year period.

The Georgia lawsuit stems from a 2014 rollover crash that killed an elderly couple driving a Ford F-250 pickup. The plaintiffs’ lawyers contend that the victims were crushed inside the truck when the roof caved in during the incident. Ford has argued that the trucks aren’t defective and that the roof structure is safe as designed.

Prior to the $1.7 billion jury verdict—Georgia’s largest in history—Ford had been sued at least 58 times in lawsuits involving rollovers and allegations of roof crush on heavy-duty trucks made during that 17-year period, according to complaints identified and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal’s review of these complaints shows that 38 people died as a result of the accidents cited in the lawsuits and dozens more were seriously injured, including people who were left paralyzed or quadriplegic.

Of these lawsuits, 43 were settled in agreements in which the terms were largely kept confidential or not made publicly available, according to court records and the plaintiffs’ lawyers involved in the cases.

The lawsuits are similar to each other in that they target heavy-duty trucks sold by Ford between the 1999 and 2016 model years under the Super Duty line. These trucks had the same underlying roof design.

Theodore Boutrous, an attorney for the auto maker, said Ford has won four rollover lawsuits involving the trucks in question, three of which were decided by a jury.

Referring to the Journal’s review of the cases, he said: “I don’t think it’s fair to draw any conclusion on the cause of the accidents or the cause of the injuries based on allegations."

Ford has challenged the $1.7 billion Georgia verdict, maintaining that the trucks were safe and the roof in question is stronger than competitors’. The company has also argued that other factors can cause injury in a violent rollover crash.

The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker filed two motions in September, seeking a new trial and a reversal of the punitive damages imposed by the jury verdict.

In all, Ford said it sold about five million of these heavy-duty trucks during the 1999-2016 model years.

The number of settlements Ford has struck related to its heavy-duty trucks isn’t unusual based on the company’s size and number of vehicles sold each year, according to law professors specializing in product liability.

Often, if there is a safety question, it can trigger a large grouping of lawsuits against one or more auto makers before gaining wider notice, especially if there is the potential for a high monetary award, according to the professors.

The question of roof strength in rollover crashes has been a highly litigated issue in the car business for several decades, spurring lawsuits against a range of auto manufacturers and some big-dollar jury awards, including against Ford and General Motors in the 1990s and early 2000s, for some other types of models.

Ford said the cases that resulted in high-profile verdicts were unrelated to heavy-duty trucks. GM declined to comment.

Rollovers are one of the most severe types of vehicle crashes, resulting in an estimated 7,600 deaths in 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Typically, these types of rollover cases conclude in settlements because they are expensive to litigate for both sides, often requiring more experts than other product-liability suits,said Ron Porter, a data expert for Lex Machina, an analytics firm for legal professionals. There are also significant financial and reputational risks for car companies in taking the cases to trial, he added.

“Rollover cases generally do involve very serious injuries and have the potential for very large verdicts," said Mr. Porter, who spent 30 years as an attorney for GM, where he represented the company in rollover lawsuits. “There is a greater potential for a rollover case to generate adverse publicity."

Ford introduced a new line of heavy-duty trucks in the late 1990s, a project that included the Super Duty F-250, F-350 and F-450 trucks, models of varying capacities that are among the auto maker’s biggest and heaviest.

In spring 2014, Melvin and Voncile Hill—a couple who had been married for 48 years—were driving their 2002 Ford F-250 pickup truck from their farm in Georgia when a tire ruptured, causing the truck to roll over.

James Butler, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said that when the truck rolled over, the Hills were crushed inside by the collapsed roof. The couple’s family sued later that year, and at trial, Mr. Butler argued that Ford was aware of dangers the roof design posed.

Mr. Butler said Ford attempted to settle with the Hill family earlier in the case. But the couple’s children were insistent on bringing the case before a jury, he said.

Kim Hill, one of the couple’s sons, said in a statement provided by Mr. Butler that he wanted to take the case to trial after learning about deaths and injuries linked to other lawsuits that had previously been settled.

“Companies love to settle cases because it keeps the plaintiff from having a voice," Mr. Hill said in the attorney-provided statement. “Someone had to stand up and say, ‘No, it needs to stop.’"

Ford’s lawyers have countered that the tire installed on the couple’s truck had the incorrect load-carrying capacity, causing it to rupture.

When it did, Mr. Hill improperly steered his truck, leading it to leave the roadway at a dangerous angle, they said. Ford also contended that the Hills weren’t properly wearing their seat belts—a point that Mr. Butler disputes, referring to torso injuries documented in the autopsy report.

Ford, in arguing for a new trial, said it didn’t get to defend itself adequately in the Georgia case because of sanctions imposed by a judge in an early hearing of the lawsuit. The judge didn’t respond to requests for comment.

If granted a new trial, Ford plans to present evidence to show the roofs used on these trucks were safe as designed, Mr. Boutrous said.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text

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