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Supreme Court Refuses to Reconsider Case Awarding Punitive Damages


November 30, 2009
Topic: Products Liability Claims

Ford Motor Company's efforts to challenge a California jury's award of punitive damages has been lost when the United States Supreme Court declined to hear Ford's appeal. The case arose from a Ford Explorer rollover accident which left a Mrs. Buell-Wilson paralyzed. She was driving on an interstate east of San Diego in January 2002 when she swerved to avoid a metal object in the roadway. During the maneuver, she lost control of her 1997 Explorer, which rolled over 4 1/2 times. The mother of two children was paralyzed from the waist down when the roof collapsed on her neck and severed her spine. The jury concluded that Ford knew the Explorer had design defects that made it prone to rollovers in emergency maneuvers and to the collapse of its roof during such incidents. Obviously, these problems present safety hazards to the occupants of the Ford Explorers.

Ford Motor Company was challenging the award of $55 million in punitive damages claiming that it should not be punished because its design of the vehicle met federal safety standards. Essentially, Ford Motor Company was claiming that federal standards pre-empted the award of punitive damages. A California state appeals court earlier rejected Ford's contention and upheld the award to Benetta Buell-Wilson. The jury had initially awarded Buell-Wilson $369 million, including $246 million in punitive damages but the California courts twice cut the size of the punitive damages award.

If you or your loved ones have been seriously injured or killed in a motor vehicle collision, you need to contact an attorney promptly to protect your rights and to investigate whether you may have a valid products liability case. In the case of serious motor vehicle accidents that result in a rollover, such as this Ford Explorer rollover case, it is important to preserve the evidence and to hire a trained investigator to examine the vehicle to determine if there was a manufacturing, design or warning defect with regard to the vehicle. As the Ford Motor Co. v. Buell-Wilson case points out, sometimes even a one-car accident where many people might originally be concerned with the operator error may be a valid case because the vehicle should have been designed in a manner that it could handle sudden movements without rolling over and subjecting occupants to the risk of serious injury or death from a collapsed roof. Contact Rachel Montes or Tom Herald at the Montes Herald Law Group, LLP for a free, no obligation, case review (214) 522-9401. Visit our website at http://www.montesherald.com/ for more information on the types of cases our firm handles.


The experienced personal injury attorneys of the Montes Herald Law Group, LLP, based in Irving, TX, represent clients throughout north Texas and statewide, with focus on the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Metroplex and Dallas County, Tarrant County, Denton County, Harris County, Travis County and Baylor County. This includes cities such as Irving, Las Colinas, Valley Ranch, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Arlington, Carrollton, Coppell, Lewisville, Grapevine, Addison, Southlake, Colleyville and the Hurst, Euless, Bedford Heb-mid cities area.

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