$47.7 Million Verdict Against Ford Over Defective Seat Latch That Paralyzed a Six-Year-Old

In June 2000, a six-year-old girl was buckled into the middle of the back seat of a 2000 Lincoln LS when her mother lost control of the vehicle and struck an oncoming pickup truck head-on. The impact caused the rear seat latch to fail. The seat folded forward, driving the child into her shoulder belt with enough force to permanently injure her thoracic spinal cord. She was left a paraplegic at age six.

The case went to trial in Fulton County, Georgia in 2004. Jeffrey Harris, now a founding partner of Harris Lowry Manton LLP, was one of the trial attorneys who represented the family, working alongside co-counsel Andrew Scherffius. Evidence at trial showed that Ford had documented latch failures during pre-production testing and had received 646 warranty claims on 2000 model year vehicles alone. Internal Ford records identified the latch as a 'safety issue.' Engineers had evaluated two low-cost fixes, a flag indicator for roughly $3 per vehicle and an interlock system at about $10, but Ford rejected both. The company modified the seat design for the 2001 model year without recalling vehicles already on the road.

Ford argued that the latch failures were limited to a small percentage of vehicles and that the design met applicable standards. The jury disagreed. After the liability phase, jurors awarded $33,868,000 in compensatory damages. The following day, in the punitive phase, they added $13,959,311, bringing the total to $47.7 million.

Ford appealed, raising six grounds of error. The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict in full in 2005, finding no reversible error in the trial court's rulings. The compensatory and punitive figures were left intact.