Jury Finds Ford Liable

LA Times ^ | 10/22/05 | Bloomberg News

[CSM]

Link only, per what I am interpreting as our copy write rules.

Bottom line, Ford has been found liable for failing to properly warn the public not to recline in their seats while driving. Oh, and to not prop their feet up on the dashboard and take a nap. For some strange reason, Ford is supposed to make sure people understand that cars don't drive themselves.....

All this to the tune of $16.95 millioin.

[bitt]

giggle - the 45 RPM in-dash record player...heh-heh!!

you had just gotten a heater package in the earlier car, didn't cha?

[KOZ.]

I childproofed my house, but they keep getting in!

as an engineer i have to keep saying to myself:
I can make it idiot proof, but someone will always come along with a better idiot.

[satchmodog9]

pantload

[Drawsing]

I used to work with a black guy who had a good sense of humor about his younger days as a "cool dude". He told us about the practice of "leanin' and cruisin'". He said he was driving down a road once and leanin' so low he could only see the tops of the trees. He was stopped by a policeman who told him he could barely see the top of his head as he drove by. He said this was a "gangsta lean". Much later I realized that this explained those song lyrics.."Diamond in the back, sunroof top, diggin' the scene with a gangsta lean..." He also told us it helped to have "gangsta whitewalls" on your tires.

Oh, one other thing...We worked in a design studio at drawing tables. He found some curb feelers out in the parking lot, brought them in and bolted them to the sides of his drawing table as a joke.

[Bellows]

The crash was caused by the driver's negligence, not Ford's.

The crash was caused by the driver, but what about the injuries? You can only take your logic so far. Suppose you're riding in a car and the driver falls asleep like in this case and there's a collision, but the car's defective and none of the safety features on your car function as they should (bumper, air bag, seat belts). As a result you suffer injuries far, far worse than if they had been working. You wouldn't have been injured at all except for the accident -- but you wouldn't have suffered nearly the injuries you did but for the design and/or manufacturing defects. Why let the manufacturer off scott free?

I have no problem with the law and a jury apportioning damages in that case; if the car was defectively designed or manufactured, that's x% of liability against the manufacturer; if the car was negligently driven, apportion x% of the liability to the driver; if I did something to contribute to my own injuries, that's x% against me. And so on. That's how the law in most states works, as far as I know. I agree that the figure assessed against Ford sounds awfully high if liability was being apportioned as I've outlined here. But I can't see letting a manufacturer completely off the hook simply because someone or something else put the events in motion. If a product causes or contributes to an injury, there's no incentive for the company to make a better/safer product if it doesn't face a risk of some sort of liability.

[CSM]

You must be a lawyer. If a person jumps off the roof of a skyscraper in an attempted suicide, yet is struck by a bullet on his way down, was he murdered?

I understand your logic, yet that logic is not applicable in this particular case. The seatbelt is not designed to function properly with the seat fully reclined. You can see a few posts with the warnings provided in the owner's manual. Is Ford required to force people to read the owner's manual?

The jury in this case simply dug into deep pockets.

[motorcity70]

The jury in this case proved they were idiots. A horrible decision all the way around.

[OpusatFR]

And you wonder why the autos in the US can't compete. This is only the what, umpteenth frivelous lawsuit that cost huge bucks?

[mvpel]

I remember when I was working as a software contractor for Ford, the department I was working with was dealing with some of the paperwork for a lawsuit by someone who bought a cheap Escort WITHOUT the optional airbag, and sued Ford when she was injured in a crash over the lack of an airbag.

[brianl703]

I've always wondered why GM and Ford are the targets of these frivolous lawsuits.

Do they have deeper pockets than Toyota/Honda or what?