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Cruze v. Ford Motor Company12/16/1999
This is a personal injury case arising out of a two-car collision between Margaret Cruze (Plaintiff/Appellee) and Deborah Bowlin (Defendant/Appellee). Cruze sued Bowlin and Ford Motor Company (Defendant/Appellant), alleging negligence by Bowlin in causing the accident. Cruze sued Ford under the theory of negligence and strict product liability concerning alleged defects in Ford's passenger restraint system on her 1994 Fort Escort. The Trial Court granted a directed verdict that Defendant Bowlin was negligent in the operation of her vehicle and submitted to the jury the questions of the allocation of fault between Defendants Ford and Bowlin and the total amount of Plaintiff's damages. The jury returned a verdict for Cruze in the amount of $6.56 million and apportioned 10% to Bowlin and 90% to Ford. Bowlin has not appealed. Ford appeals and states the issues on appeal as follows:
1. Whether the trial court violates a defendant's right to jury trial when it submits the case in a form that requires the jury to allocate fault for all of the plaintiff's damages either to that defendant, or to a co-defendant, or to both, and does not permit the jury any other option.
2. Whether the trial court commits reversible error when it submits a "crashworthiness" product liability case in a form that does not ask the jury to determine the amount of the damages (out of all those the plaintiff suffered in the accident) for which the product manufacturer should share fault with the tort-feasor who caused the accident.
1. Whether the trial court commits reversible error in a product liability case when it refuses to instruct the jury that compliance with government standards for vehicle occupant crash protection creates a rebuttable presumption that the vehicle was not unreasonably dangerous in that respect, where the plaintiff alleges that the product was in a defective condition and that the manufacturer was negligent.
2. Whether the judgment in a product liability case should be reversed where the liability question was submitted to the jury with instructions limiting that question to a claim of negligence and where the evidence did not identify a specific error in the product's design or manufacture, or link any such error with the manufacturer's lack of due care.
For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of the Trial Court.
BACKGROUND
Cruze was leaving a nursing home in her 1994 Ford Escort, headed north on Highway 11W in Grainger County when Bowlin, traveling south on 11W, made a left turn in her path. Bowlin's Pontiac Grand Am collided with Cruze's Ford Escort, with the initial impact at the Ford's left front bumper. Bowlin sustained minor injuries. Bowlin's 4-year-old child, a passenger in her car, suffered no injuries, and her mother, also a passenger, suffered injuries requiring five days' hospitalization. Cruze was wearing a manual lap seat belt with an automatic shoulder harness, which were in place when the emergency crew arrived to assist her. Her car was also equipped with a driver-side air bag, which had deployed. She suffered a cervical fracture at C6-7, resulting in quadriplegia.
It is uncontested that Cruze was not at fault. Both Cruze and Bowlin alleged that Cruze's injury was due to a defect in the Ford's air bag system. Cruze and Ford both presented to the jury considerable expert testimony. Cruze's expert testified that the injury was caused by the late deployment of the air bag and that there could be no other reasonable explanation. Cruze also presented expert engineer testimony that the late deployment of the air bag was caused by design changes in the air bag crash sensor system utili
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