Posted on 04/20/2005 12:02:00 PM PDT by wmichgrad
A Madison County jury returned from deliberations Tuesday night to award $43 million to Dora Jablonski in the aftermath of a fiery crash two years ago for which prosecutors say Ford Motor Co. was primarily to blame.
Jurors got the case just after 3 p.m. and handed the verdict form to Circuit Judge Andy Matoesian five-and-a-half hours later.
In his closing statements, attorney Brad Lakin asked the jury to award Jablonski and her family $32 million for medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other expenses but left it up to them to fix an amount for punitive damages. The jury decided on $15 million.
Lakin argued that Ford ignored warnings from its own engineers that designing the 1993 Lincoln Town Car with a vertical fuel tank behind the rear axle was unsafe. Later, the company chose not to spend $9.95 per car to relocate the fuel tank to a safer location; Lakin said they deemed that option too expensive.
"It has to be a substantial amount to send a message that that conduct is wrong," he said of the punitive damages.
Jurors awarded $5 million to Dora Jablonski's husband, John Jablonski, who was killed after Natalie Ingram, a then-21-year-old SIUE student, slammed her car into the rear of the Town Car, which had stopped for construction on Interstate 270, near the Illinois 203 exit.
Ford's attorney, Jim Feeney, argued again on Tuesday that it was Ingram, not Ford, who was to blame for the tragedy when she fumbled for her glasses and failed to notice that the Town Car had stopped. Ingram was ticketed for failing to slow down to avoid the accident. On the eve of the trial, she was dismissed as a defendant in the suit.
Jurors gave $23.1 million to Dora Jablonski, awarding a total of $19.5 million to her for disability, disfigurement, and pain and suffering. Last week, Jablonski testified for nearly 90 minutes from her wheelchair. Jurors learned that she was burned over 32 percent of her body and came away with deformities to her ears, nose, head, face, hands, arms, shoulders, and legs.
Lakin told jurors that John Jablonski's final memory was of his wife engulfed in flames. He asked them to award her $10 million for pain and disability. "Her pain, at the time of the accident, was the most excruciating anyone could imagine," he said
Lakin also asked them to award $15 million in punitive damages against Ford, saying the company knew about the potential for safety problems for 40 years but that "no Ford employees were ready to accept responsibility."
Feeney argued that the company followed federal safety guidelines by acting reasonably and by offering a car that met the criteria of being reasonably safe. Moreover, the Town Car, he argued, met Ford's own safety design guidelines.
The explosion was caused by a wrench in the Jablonski's trunk that "blew" through the fuel tank on impact, causing the tank to rupture and igniting an explosion. But Feeney said the Town Car's design "mitigates risk of puncture" by contents stored in the trunk. The Town Car, he argued, had met the highest crash standards in the industry. Accidents and fires occur in all cars, he argued, and the risk of fire in such a crash is extremely rare. The Town Car, he said, was designed with a metal barrier around the gas tank that was designed to prevent explosions. Ingram, he said, admitted she was traveling more than 60 mph at the time of impact, and there was no evidence that she tried to brake. Feeney called the accident "one-of-a-kind." For the fuel tank to be punctured, Feeney argued, several unusual factors had to be present, including excessive speed, failure to brake, and the position of the wrench in the trunk. "It was the perfect alignment of the moon, the sun, the stars, the planets," he said. "Everything had to be same for this to happen."
THat right there, considering it would HAVE to be made by union labor, would cost $40 per hour.....
You can't punish a corporation, you can only punish its customers and stock holders. This judgement amounts to saying every single American who buys a car from Ford this year will pay for the car, and put in an extra couple of bucks on top of that to pay for this judgement.
The life's labors of millions of engineers and industrialists specializing in literally thousands of fields have made our society the most physically mobile in history. Just about anyone willing to work can afford to have a car and travel anywhere they want to go on a whim. It's incredible. A wonder of the world. I would say it's on the short list for THE wonder of the world.
Reading about the rebuilding of Iraq, you see that basic infrastructure like electricity and water are a major problem because looters are ripping out the pipes and transmission wires to sell for scrap metal as fast as we can put them back up. And you shake your head and wonder how they could be so short sightedly self destructive.
Well, right here in America the god damned trial laywers are looting our own civilization just as effectively one bad judgement like this one at a time.
People this will be changed.
I'll do it. The greedy bastards won't quit until there isn't a single job left in this country.
Ford actually builds useful things while useless eater lawyers feed off the carcass of American industry and business.
I will withhold my opinion till I see the details. If valid they needed to get hit and IMHO the people who made the decision need to go to JAIL.
Of course she was dismissed prior to trial -- she hasn't got the bankroll ($$$).
Truest thing ever said on Freep.
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