Automaker Ford Motor has been ordered by a US jury to pay more than $1.7 billion to relatives of victims of a 2014 road crash that claimed the lives of a couple in the state of Georgia, the family lawyer told the Bloomberg business news agency on Saturday.
According to this lawyer, Gerald Davidson, the jurors returned their verdict Friday and fixed the amount of damages after a two-week trial in Lawrenceville, Georgia. But the verdict has not yet been released and Ford has not commented, Bloomberg said. The accident happened when the car the couple was in, a 2002 Ford F-250 pickup, suffered a flat tire while driving. The vehicle then overturned and the two occupants were crushed because the roof of the car was not strong enough to support the weight of the vehicle. The family of the two victims, Melvin and Voncile Hill, argued during the trial that Ford knew the roofs of its F-250s were too thin to protect drivers in the event of a rollover. But the automotive group would have failed to warn consumers about this. Roofs of this design were reportedly fitted to cars until 2016. Ford’s order to pay such an amount does not mean that the victims’ families will receive so much money, Bloomberg points out. In Georgia, three-quarters of such money still goes to the state. The rest is shared between the plaintiff and the lawyers. The past also shows that very large damages are often also reduced in appeal proceedings. (Belga)
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