Life & Style | Motoring
Ford escapes $27m payout over death
Retrial set after company was ordered to provide compensation to family of crash victim.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 00:11 October 20, 2008
Chicago: Ford Motor Co., the second-largest US automaker, won't have to pay a $27 million (Dh99.2 million) jury verdict to the family of a 46-year-old man who was killed when his Ford Escort was rear-ended, Illinois's top court ruled.
The family of James Mikolajczyk said the 1996 Escort's seat back was defective because it collapsed backward in the crash. Mikolajczyk, a physician's assistant at the University of Chicago Hospital, died of head injuries after the February 2000 accident, said family attorney, Bruce Pfaff.
A Chicago jury awarded the family $25 million in 2005, finding the seat design defective.
The Illinois Supreme Court on Friday threw out the verdict, ruling the trial judge's jury instructions didn't include consideration that the Escort seat design may have prevented more injuries than it caused.
"The jury was specifically instructed to focus its deliberations solely on whether the seat was unsafe when put to a reasonably foreseeable use," the court said in ordering a new trial.
"A retrial is required because the jury was inadequately instructed."
Drunk driver
The Mikolajczyk family will ask the court for a rehearing, Pfaff said. The court was "completely, utterly and totally wrong," he said in an interview.
No new trial date has been set.
Ford is pleased with the decision, Mark Truby, a spokesman for the Dearborn, Michigan-based company, said in an e-mail.
"We continue to believe that the plaintiff's claims are without merit, and we look forward to presenting our case at the new trial."
Mikolajczyk was parked at a red light when a drunk driver travelling about 60 miles an hour smashed his Cadillac into the back of the Escort.
Ford contended the force of the collision, not the design of the seat, led to Mikolajczyk's death.
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