Supreme Court Denies Ford Explorer Appeal
By Michelle Krebs November 30, 2009The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-ditch effort from Ford Motor Co. Monday to reverse an 
$82.6 million decision in a product-liability case involving the Ford Explorer, according to the Wall Street Journal.
California resident Benetta Buell-Wilson and her husband sued Ford in 2002, the year the Ford Explorer Buell-Wilson was driving overturned on a highway. Buell-Wilson swerved to avoid a piece of metal, causing the Explorer to roll over and its roof to collapsed, crushing Buell-Wilson and rendering her a paraplegic.
A California trial jury awarded the Wilsons nearly $356 million in damages, but the trial court cut those damages in half. The California court of appeals later reduced the actual damages to $27.6 million and the punitive damages to $55 million. In 2007, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts for review, but the California appeals court concluded it didn't need to modify its previous decision.
Ford's attorneys tried to bring the case back to the high court "with a relatively unusual argument that California laws were too vague and that the Supreme Court needed to clarify the due process manufacturers face in product-liability cases," the paper reported.
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