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