Georgia jury awards $1.7 billion in Ford truck crash case

A jury in Gerogia has returned a $1.7 billion verdict against Ford Motor, in a case that involved a pickup truck crash resulting in the death of a couple, the AP reported on Sunday.

James Butler Jr., lawyer for the Georgia couple Melvin and Voncile Hill who died in a crash in April 2014 in the rollover crash of their 2002 Ford F-250, said on Sunday that jurors in Gwinnett County, northeast of Atlanta, returned the verdict late last week.

The couple’s children, Kim and Adam Hill, were the plaintiffs in the case, involving what their lawyers called dangerously defective roofs on Ford pickup trucks.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs had submitted evidence of almost 80 similar rollover crash that involved truck roofs being struck that injured or killed motorists, Butler’s law firm, Butler Prather LLP.

“An award of punitive damages to hopefully warn people riding around in the millions of those trucks Ford sold was the reason the Hill family insisted on a verdict,” AP noted, quoting Butler.

Ford hasn’t commented yet.