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July 29, 2010 |
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| November 08, 2007 |
By: Billy Shields |
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The Explorer involved in the 1997 crash that killed 17-year-old Lance Crossman Hall.
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he 3rd District Court of Appeal handed Ford Motor a victory Wednesday when it reversed a $60 million jury verdict against the nation’s second-largest automaker involving a fatal rollover crash of an Explorer SUV.
Ford appealed the verdict in June 2006 on the grounds that Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Roberto Pineiro erred by allowing testimony alluding to hundreds of Ford Explorer accidents without requiring the plaintiffs to establish similarities between those accidents and the one that caused the 1997 death of 17-year-old Lance Crossman Hall.
“We’re pleased that the court recognized that we did not get a fair trial, and we’re looking forward to restarting this,” Ford spokeswoman Kristen Kinley said from the company’s corporate headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. “We’re confident that we’ll get a fair trial this time.”
Attorneys representing Hall’s family were less enthused but prepared for a new trial.
“Everybody always likes the opportunity to do something a little better the second time around, but this is a little disappointing,” said Plantation lawyer Richard M. Mogerman, who represents Hall’s father, Lester. “He’s had a very difficult time coping with the loss of his child, but we respect the court’s opinion and will proceed accordingly.”
Before Hall’s death, hundreds of deaths involving rolling Ford Explorers and failing Bridgestone tires made national headlines and led to a $19 million recall campaign by both companies in 2000 and 2001. In Hall’s accident, the Explorer in which he was riding flipped four times. The accident ejected him from the sport utility vehicle even though he was wearing his seatbelt.
After the jury delivered its verdict, plaintiff attorneys stated it was the first time Ford — not one of its tire suppliers — had been held liable for a rollover accident.
The panel consisting of Chief Judge David M. Gersten, Senior Judge Alan R. Schwartz and Judge Angel A. Cortiñas set aside the jury’s verdict and remanded the case for a new trial involving both liability and compensatory damages.
Judge Pineiro “never inquired into the general characteristics of the other accidents,” Cortiñas wrote. “Here, throughout the trial, numerous references were made to other cases without laying a foundation for substantial similarity.”
During the trial, witnesses testified that rollover accidents involving Ford Explorers caused hundreds of injuries and deaths and Ford could have prevented Hall’s death by quickening design changes.
Kinley dismissed the idea that Ford was liable in Hall’s death.
“Trying to compare other cases that involved the tires to a case involving a driver that fell asleep at the wheel are completely unrelated,” she said. In this case “it was about a driver that fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of the vehicle.”
Hall, a North Miami resident, died after being thrown from the passenger-side front seat of a somersaulting 1996 Ford Explorer after the driver fell asleep at the wheel and lost control of the vehicle. Hall’s parents filed a lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court against Ford in 1999 alleging defects in the Explorer’s handling and stability characteristics caused the SUV to flip instead of skid.
A jury eventually found Ford liable for placing the Explorer on the market with a design flaw and determined this flaw caused the accident. Hall’s family won a compensatory jury verdict of $60 million following a trial that ended in November 2005. Half the verdict represented the pain and suffering of his father; half was for the pain and suffering of his mother, Joan Hall-Edwards.
“It was a significant verdict. But the fact that it has to be retried doesn’t take away from the fact that the Explorer is an unstable vehicle,” said Ervin A. Gonzalez, a partner with Colson Hicks & Eidson in Coral Gables. Gonzalez has handled several liability cases involving Ford but he was not in this case. “Ford has known that this vehicle has a high propensity for rolling over, it’s not crashworthy and they didn’t protect the public.”
Billy Shields can be reached at bshields@alm.com or at (305) 347-6649.
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