Posted 1/28/2006 02:17:00 PM by Douglas

It really isn't any wonder Ford is hemorrhaging money when they have to try cases in front of juries like this.

A Nueces County jury hit Ford Motor Co. with a $29.5 million judgment Friday for a San Antonio woman who was partially paralyzed when the 1992 Mazda Navajo she was riding in rolled over.

Rose Muñoz was traveling with a friend to the Poteet Strawberry Festival in April 2002 when an 11-year-old tire blew, causing the accident. The Navajo is a Ford Explorer with a Mazda nameplate. Her lawyers argued that the tire, a spare, still had a significant amount of tread remaining.

"The Mazda Navajo is a safe reliable vehicle and not the cause of either the accident or Miss Muñoz's injuries," Vokes said. "This is another tragic reminder that seat belts can help protect passengers only when they are worn. In this case the court did not allow Mazda to present evidence to the jury about Miss Muñoz's failure to wear her seatbelt or how she was injured. For this and a number of other reasons Ford is confident this verdict will be reversed on appeal."

I don't care if the car was hit by a meteorite sitting in the driveway, a jury should not award one penny to anyone injured in a car crash that wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Ford is somehow responsible for her safety more than she is? She doesn't care enough about her own well-being to put on a seatbelt? Overlawyered has more:

A Nueces County, Texas jury held Ford 75% (and Mazda another 10%) responsible for $29 million in damages, on the grounds that Ford should have done more to warn consumers about the dangers of ten-year-old tires—even though the tires in question were the notorious Bridgestone/Firestone tires that had actually been recalled in 2000, but had been left on the SUV.

If the tires were recalled in 2000, why were they still on the car in 2002? After the total media saturation of the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall, I can't imagine how anyone could have been unaware of this problem.

Jurors said they were influenced by the fact that Ford has since added a warning in their owners' manual about replacing tires more than six years old. Firestone settled the case, allowing the plaintiffs to focus blame on Ford at trial.

So warning people of a possible problem is an admission of guilt. Boy, that sets up a great precedent, doesn't it?