Latest news with #DebraMills
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Jury Finds Ford Must Pay $2.5 Billion After 2 Die in Super Duty Crash
A jury in Columbus, Georgia has ordered the Ford Motor Company to pay up to the sum of $2.5 billion after a rollover crash in one of the brand's pickup truck killed two occupants. The accident happened in August of 2022, when Debra Mills, 64, lost control of her 2015 Ford F-250 Super Duty. Authorities said that after leaving the roadway, the truck hit a drainage culvert and then went airborne for roughly 80 feet before landing on its roof. Mills and her husband, Herman Mills, 74, both died as a result of the crash. Family members went on to sue Ford for wrongful death alleging that the roof of the F-250 was too weak and that the automaker knew it. In fact, the jury heard arguments that more than 5 million Super Duty pickup trucks from between 1999 and 2016 have suspect roofs. (Ford did not respond with a comment as of this story's publication; we'll update this piece accordingly if we hear back.) The jury's ruling for $2.5 billion in punitive damages comes on the heels of a ruling by the same jury last Thursday, issuing a verdict against the carmaker for $30.5 million in compensatory damages in the same trial. 'Ford has known for 26 years that people were getting killed and hurt by these weak roofs,' said James 'Jim' Butler Jr., lead counsel for the Mills family, according to the Ledger-Enquirer. 'Ford has constantly refused to admit the danger or warn of the risk.' The strength-to-weight ratio of trucks in the suspect class is 1.1, according to the lawsuit. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, meanwhile, requires a ratio of 4.0 to rate a vehicle as "good." A spokesperson for Ford told The Ledger-Enquirer says that the vehicles' roofs are "not defective," and that the automaker plans to appeal the ruling. Notably, that appeal strategy did just work for it in a separate but similar matter: In 2022, a jury awarded $1.7 billion in damages to a plaintiff in another roof-crushing case. The Court of Appeals in Georgia has since wiped that judgment out, however, and granted Ford a new trial. According to "Out of about 5.2 million 1999-2016 trucks, there were 79 similar collapsed roof incidents introduced into evidence," in that Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Columbus jury renders verdict in $2.5 billion lawsuit against Ford Motor Company
A Columbus jury rendered a 'phase 2' verdict Friday of $2.5 billion in punitive damages in a case against the Ford Motor Company, according to a news release from Butler Prather LLP, a Columbus-based law firm. The case, Brogdon (Mills) v. Ford Motor Company, involved the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, who died as a result of their injuries after their 2015 Ford F250 'Super Duty' truck rolled over and the roof crushed down on them in August 2022 in Decatur County, according to the news release. The Mills were founders of Mills Welding & Fabrication Services and retired in 2019, according to the release. The release says the Mills truck left the road, hit a culvert covered by tall grass, vaulted into the air, struck on its front and then flopped over. The roof collapsed into the passenger compartment, the release says. The release says Debra Mills died at the scene and Herman Mills died nine days later in a Tallahassee, Florida, hospital. The release says, 'The roofs on all 1999-2016 'Super Duty' trucks are indisputably weak.' The release claims those trucks have a strength-to-weight rating (SWR) of 1.1 when the minimum SWR rating to get a 'good' roof strength rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is 4.0. 'Ford contended that the roofs on the 1999-2016 'Super Duty' trucks are 'absolutely safe' and there was nothing wrong with them,' the release says. The release says, 'Ford also contended, as it has for decades, that roof strength doesn't matter — that there is no 'causal relationship' between roof strength and injuries in rollover wrecks.' The release also states, 'That argument has been rejected by the federal government agency charged with automotive safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ('NHTSA'), and by the IIHS.' The lawsuit was filed May 23, 2023, by James E. 'Dusty' Brogdon and his brothers Ronald B. 'Rusty' Brogdon and Jason Mills, according to the release. The release says the case was filed in the Columbus Division of the Middle District of Georgia because James E. Brogdon lives in Harris County. The case was tried in the United States District Court, Middle District of Georgia, Columbus Division, before U.S. District Judge Clay Land. This phase 2 verdict comes after the the jury rendered its phase 1 compensatory damages verdict Thursday for $30.5 million, according to the release. 'Ford has known for 26 years that people were getting killed and hurt by these weak roofs,' James 'Jim' Butler Jr., lead counsel for the Mills family, said in the news release. 'Ford has constantly refused to admit the danger or warn of the risk.' 'We were very pleased to be able to help the Mills family,' Ramsey Prather, co-counsel for the Mills family, said in the news release. 'Perhaps this verdict will serve to do what Ford refuses to do — warn American citizens of the danger.' The Ledger-Enquirer didn't reach a Ford Motor Company official for comment before publication.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ford ordered to pay $2.5B to Georgia family after couple killed in rollover crash
A Georgia family is being awarded more than $2.5 billion after their loved ones were killed in a rollover crash in 2022. Herman and Debra Mills were killed when their 2015 Ford F250 'Super Duty' truck rolled over in Decatur County in August 2022. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] A Columbus jury found that Ford was mostly at fault for the couple's deaths. Debra Mills was driving the truck with Herman Mills in the passenger seat when the truck struck a driveway drainage culvert, causing the vehicle to go airborne for about 81 feet before smashing into the ground and flipping over, according to filings in the case obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. According to the lawsuit, attorneys for the couple's sons argued that all of Ford's 'Super Duty' trucks from 1999 to 2016 had 'defective and dangerously weak roofs.' TRENDING STORIES: Sheriff: 'Other matters' investigated amid Lake Oconee search for missing teacher Jefferson HS wrestler breathing on his own after broken neck at state tournament 14-year-old Gwinnett boy dies in his sleep after overdosing on drugs laced with fentanyl The crash came just a few days after a Gwinnett County jury awarded $1.7 billion to the family of farmers from Macon County who were killed in a rollover crash in their 2002 Ford F250 'Super Duty' truck. 'While our sympathies go out to the Brogdon family, the verdict is impermissibly extreme and not supported by the evidence,' a Ford spokesperson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The spokesperson went on to say that Ford plans to appeal the verdict. You can read the full lawsuit below. Brogdon v. Ford by Jennifer Smith on Scribd [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
