Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

August 22 (Xinhua)-- A jury in Georgia ruled on a lawsuit triggered by a fatal car accident in 2014 on Sunday local time, demanding that Ford Motor Company pay $1.7 billion (about 11.628 billion yuan) to the families of the victims. But Ford expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling and planned to appeal.

It is reported that the accident occurred in April 2014, when Georgia residents Melvin and Voncile Hill drove the 2002 Ford Fmur250 pickup truck overturned, killing both of them. Their two children, Kim Hill and Adam Hill, sued Ford for serious defects in the roof of its pickup truck.

A jury in Gwyneth County, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, reached a verdict on Sunday. In this lawsuit, plaintiff lawyer James Butler (James Butler Jr.) has submitted evidence of nearly 80 similar rollover accidents. These accidents involved the crushing of the roof of the truck, resulting in injury or death of the driver.

Butler said he was shocked by the evidence shown in the case. "I used to buy Ford trucks," he said. I thought no one would sell a pickup with such a fragile roof. This damn thing is useless in a car accident. You might as well drive a convertible. "

Mr Butler added: "the Hill family insisted on the lawsuit because they wanted punitive damages to warn those who took the millions of pickups sold by Ford."

In his closing statement, Ford's defense lawyer, William William Withrow Jr., said there was no basis for the allegation that "Ford and its engineers deliberately ignored the safety of passengers and acted willfully and unscrupulously when making decisions about roof strength."

In the same closing statement, another defence lawyer, Paul Marek, said it was "simply not true" to accuse Ford of being irresponsible and deliberately making decisions that put clients at risk.

A representative of Ford said Sunday that the company plans to appeal the ruling. "while we sympathize with Hill's family, we do not think they have sufficient evidence to support the verdict and we plan to appeal," Ford said in a statement. "

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