That Wallet Better Be Ford Tough: Jury Drops Almost $2B In Punitives On Car Manufacturer

You'd think making headlines for cutting 3,000 jobs would be enough bad publicity.

onAugust 22, 2022 at 5:47 PMAugust 22, 2022 at 4:54 PM

3d traffic cones and a safety helmet You know that scene from Fight Club? The one where The Narrator breaks down the macabre algebra so integral to his job? If you haven’t seen that one, this scene from Saw 6 gets at the same point. When movies draw attention to the callous calculations companies make that impact everyday lives, it is hard to walk away from the expose without feeling like the story was just a bit too ham-fisted. But they depict a calculus that’s all too real. And it’s not just the Ford Pinto. It is still Ford though. And if moral-minded movies can’t get the point across, maybe money-minded juries are our last hope.

The family of an elderly couple killed when the roof of their F-250 pickup collapsed during a rollover accident in 2014 has been awarded a massive $1.7 billion in punitive damages from Ford.

The jury appeared to endorse the plaintiff’s arguments that Ford knew of the problem years before the fatal crash, acted slowly to correct it and that other deaths have resulted from the same design flaw.

Evidence presented in the case showed that the F-250 pickups made in the 17 model years prior to 2017 all pose a risk to drivers and passengers in cases of a rollover, said Jim Butler Jr., the attorney who won the verdict. He said 5.2 million trucks have been built with the same faulty roof. Perhaps even more troubling is that the best-selling F-150 pickups made before Model Year 2009 have a very similar roof design, Butler said. The F-150 has been the best selling US vehicle of any type for more than 40 years.

$1.7 billion dollars is an eye-boggling amount, but 5.2 million trucks with a similarly faulty roof is nothing to scoff at either. The sentiment behind the numbers that Fight Club and Saw 6 pose is that it is not enough to trust that companies will do what is right by their customers. Companies do what will reap a large profit, even if it means making a killing. There have been many moves to limit the amount of money that juries can exact from companies with punitive judgments — just think about how the several million in punitives the jury wanted from Alex Jones for lying about the Sandy Hook shooting for years was reduced to… maybe $750k? We all recognize that having Jigsaws play vigilante when companies decide who lives and dies with a calculator is a problem, but what sense does it make to curb jury verdicts, a powerful way that the people can put a thumb to the scales of justice?

This death, others before it, and deaths to come, are preventable.

The punitive damages were awarded because Ford knew well in advance of the 2014 crash that it had a problem with the roof, Butler said. He said Ford’s engineers had already designed a safer roof, but the automaker did not move immediately to install it on the trucks.

“Long before the Hills were killed, Ford was on notice from their own engineers, own crash tests and dozens of accidents that people were being killed, and it did nothing,” Butler said.

This time it is was the Ford-150. The billion-dollar verdict won’t be what Ford has to pay out at the end of the day. But hopefully this is a signal to manufacturers that recalls and modifications to products so people don’t die may actually be financially pertinent. And this is bigger than car companies. In times past it was an IUD, a bulletproof vest, or a crib. Transparency and accountability are ideal, but in a world where the bottom dollar means more than grandparents making it home to their grandchildren, juries have an important role to play in bringing awareness to the dangers that get passed off as good marketing.

Ford Hit With $1.7 Billion Verdict For F-Series Pickup Roof Collapse That Killed Couple [CNN]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s. He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.