Attorney Joseph W. Carcione Jr. Issues Statement Regarding Reversal of $290 Million Punitive Damage Award Against Ford.MODESTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 17, 1999-- Attorney Joseph W. Carcione Jr. issued the following statement: Reversal of $290 Million Punitive Damage Award Against Ford is No Victory for Ford Judge Lets Stand Unanimous Verdict That Ford Bronco's Defective Roof Caused Deaths A Superior Court judge upheld a jury's unanimous finding against Ford Motor Co. that a defective roof on its 1978 Ford Bronco The Ford Bronco was a SUV produced from 1966 through 1996, with five distinct generations. It was initially introduced as a competitor for the Jeep CJ-5 and International Harvester Scout. caused the death of a father and mother and their 16-year-old son in a rollover A graphic element in an application or on a Web page that changes its color or shape when the pointer is moved (rolled) over it. See JavaScript rollover. See also n-key rollover. accident and awarded compensatory damages A sum of money awarded in a civil action by a court to indemnify a person for the particular loss, detriment, or injury suffered as a result of the unlawful conduct of another. of $5 million. The judge, however, ordered a new trial on the $290 million punitive damage verdict, based on Ford's allegations that one juror's dream and another juror's secondhand knowledge of a "60 Minutes" segment about other defective Ford vehicles The following is a list of vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company under the Ford marque. Cars
v. taint·ed, taint·ing, taints v.tr. 1. To affect with or as if with a disease. 2. To affect with decay or putrefaction; spoil. See Synonyms at contaminate. 3. jury deliberations. "Reversing the $290 million award was no victory for Ford. The next jury will award even higher damages," said plaintiffs' attorney Joseph W. Carcione Jr. "Four of the jurors in the last trial wanted to assess punitive damages Monetary compensation awarded to an injured party that goes beyond that which is necessary to compensate the individual for losses and that is intended to punish the wrongdoer. at a billion dollars or more. The $290 million amount was reached as a compromise." Since it is now established that the Bronco's defective roof resulted in the deaths of the three family members, the new trial will only address whether Ford acted maliciously in its manufacture of the 1978/79 Bronco bronco: see mustang. . "Sooner or later, Ford will have to accept what 12 American jurors will continue to say: that this Bronco is the result of malicious actions by Ford who willfully willfully adv. referring to doing something intentionally, purposefully and stubbornly. Examples: "He drove the car willfully into the crowd on the sidewalk." "She willfully left the dangerous substances on the property." (See: willful) put profits ahead of people," said plaintiffs' co-counsel Laurence Drivon. In July, the jury found Ford liable for the deaths of Ramon, Salustia and Ramiro Romo, whose heads were crushed in the rollover accident because the SUV's roof smashed straight down to the dashboard. All three of the people killed in the vehicle were wearing seat belts. The jury's $290 million punitive damage award to the three siblings orphaned in the crash was the second-largest punitive damage award in U.S. history. A former Ford executive vice president testified that the 1978/79 Bronco was the worst vehicle Ford ever put out in terms of crashworthiness Crashworthiness is the ability of a structure to protect its occupants during an impact. This is commonly tested when investigating the safety of vehicles. Depending on the nature of the impact and the vehicle involved, different criteria are used to determine the in the 27 years he was with the company. The back two-thirds of the Bronco's roof is made entirely of plastic and is the only vehicle Ford has ever manufactured without steel in the back support pillar of the roof. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Carcione, the mostly plastic roof, in fact, is merely a camper top. To manufacture the vehicle, Ford basically just chopped off the back portion of a 1978 Pickup truck and stuck on the plastic camper top, put a bench seat in the back, and removed a warning that had been posted on the camper top and Pickups that said, "Do Not Ride Under This Camper Top." The 1978/79 Bronco was Ford's first large SUV. The company had been preparing to enter the large SUV market with its 1980 Bronco, but rushed the 1978/79 model into production when the large SUV market began to take off. Ford did so, despite the fact that company executives never expected this Bronco to survive a rollover, and were fully aware that the vehicle would overturn three to five times more frequently than a passenger car, according to the attorney. According to Carcione, while it closely resembles the 1980 Bronco, the 1978/79 Bronco also has an almost threefold higher rollover death rate than the 1980-1996 models. In addition, it appears that the rollover death rate in the earlier model is higher than any other vehicle, once rollover begins. Despite the deadly risks associated with the 1978/79 Bronco, Ford refuses to issue a recall of the 70,000 to 100,000 vehicles still on the road today, Carcione said. |
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