Ford, Firestone Lawsuits Combined

WASHINGTON--A federal judicial panel has combined more than 60 class action and individual lawsuits against Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. and the Ford Motor Co. involving rollover crashes, injuries and fatalities blamed on tire tread separations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The panel then assigned the lawsuits to a federal judge in Indianapolis.

The newspaper reported that the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation in Washington assigned the federal cases against Ford and Firestone to Chief U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker.

The multi-district panel ruled there were enough similarities among the claims to warrant consolidation, the newspaper reported.