I think all Kia owners should contact Attorney Dennis Schoville about Kias lack of safety and poor quality. I have not been able to find his contact info. If anyone obtains it, please post it up on this report, as a rebuttal statement.
Thank you:
SAN DIEGO (AP) - A jury has ordered Ford Motor Co. To pay nearly $369 million to a woman paralyzed in a rollover accident involving a Ford Explorer, the nation's best-selling sport-utility vehicle.
The San Diego County jury ordered the No. 2 automaker on Thursday to pay $246 million in punitive damages, after awarding more than $122.6 million in compensatory damages Tuesday.
The award is one of the biggest ever against the automaker and marked the first loss after 11 victories in rollover lawsuits involving the Ford Explorer.
Ford, based in Dearborn, Mich., has said it will appeal.
(AP) Attorney Dennis Schoville, left, enjoys a lighter moment in his office Wednesday, June 2, as...
Full Image
The trial, which began March 15, involved a January accident on an interstate highway near Alpine, east of San Diego. The driver, Benetta Buell-Wilson, swerved to avoid a metal object and lost control of her 1997 Explorer, which rolled 4 1/2 times.
Buell-Wilson, a 49-year-old San Diego mother of two, offered to knock $100 million off the damage award if Ford would fix the design problems in the Explorer that left her permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
"I'm hoping they'll fix what's out there because I don't want what's happened to me to happen to anyone else, " Buell-Wilson said Thursday.
In a statement, Ford insisted the Explorer was safe.
"Although the offer makes a great sound bite, it doesn't change the facts: The Explorer meets or exceeds all Federal safety standards. There is no defect with the Explorer, " spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes said. "The Explorer is an outstanding vehicle with a solid safety record and we will continue to aggressively defend our products."
(AP) Attorney Dennis Schoville, left, talks in his office Wednesday, June 2, after a jury late...
Full Image
Ford has sold more than 5 million Explorers since the vehicle was introduced in 1990, she said.
The award may be the largest personal-injury verdict against an automaker, said Robert Peck, president of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, a Washington, D.C., law firm whose clients include the American Trial Lawyers Association.
Last year, a California appeals court cut a $290 million punitive-damage verdict to $23.7 million for a Ford Bronco rollover accident that killed three people.
Dennis Schoville, one of two attorneys who represented Buell-Wilson, contended that Ford had sacrificed passenger safety for profits. The lawsuit involved design issues found on all Explorers made through Schoville said.
Schoville said Ford declined to follow its engineers' suggestions to widen the Explorer's wheel track or to lower its center of gravity - costly changes that would make the vehicle more stable. Concern about costs also kept Ford from sufficiently reinforcing the Explorer's roof to protect passengers in a vehicle "they know is going to roll over, " he said.
Lou Arnell, who also represented Buell-Wilson, said the punitive award was intended to "punish" Ford for selling a defective vehicle.
"I think their message to Ford is that it's not OK what they've done and continue to do by not recalling the Ford Explorers, " he said.
0 comments