$31 Million Settlement After Two-Point Lap Belt Paralyzed an 11-Year-Old in a Ford Escort

In October 2010, a 1999 Ford Escort was struck by another vehicle that ran a stop sign near Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Che-Val Batts, then 11 years old, was seated in the rear center position, the only seat in the car equipped with a two-point lap belt rather than a three-point shoulder-and-lap belt. The impact threw his upper body forward and over the lap belt in what engineers call a jackknife motion. His spinal cord was severely damaged, leaving him a paraplegic.

The circumstances of the crash made the design question unavoidable. The other occupants of the same car came away with comparatively minor injuries, while Che-Val, restrained by the older lap-only design in the rear center seat, bore the full biomechanical consequence of that difference.

Hoyt Tessener and Megan West of Martin and Jones, together with co-counsel J. Kent Emison of Langdon and Emison, filed suit against Ford Motor Company and the driver of the striking vehicle in Nash County Superior Court (case number 11-CVS-86). The core theory was straightforward: Ford had known since the 1960s that two-point lap belts offer inferior protection compared to three-point shoulder belts, had used three-point belts in other seating positions in the same vehicle, yet continued to install two-point belts in the rear center seat of the Escort.

Ford contested both causation and design. The automaker argued the Escort met every applicable federal safety standard in force when it was built, that the crash speed alone accounted for the severity of the injuries, and that Che-Val had shifted forward and turned in his seat in a way that placed the belt incorrectly across his body. Ford also raised the possibility that a three-point shoulder belt could itself cause spinal harm to a small child in a high-speed collision.

Trial began in early 2015 before Judge Thomas Lock. After weeks of testimony from engineers, biomechanics experts, and Ford's own internal documents, the jury first returned a verdict favorable to Ford: it found the two-point lap belt was not defective and assigned sole responsibility to the driver who struck the Escort. When the jury was polled, the verdict proved not unanimous, as North Carolina law requires, so deliberations resumed. The jury then reported it was deadlocked 8 to 4. Shortly after that report reached the courtroom, the parties announced a confidential settlement of $31 million, avoiding a mistrial.

The settlement closed the case before any reduction or further judicial review. Che-Val Batts was 16 years old when the trial took place, five years after the crash.