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Texas Jury Sends Ford $20 Million Message for Faulty Airbags

28 April 2000

    ARLINGTON, Va.- A Dallas Texas jury Thursday told Ford Motor Company to pay 
$20 million in compensatory damages for injuries that an airbag in a 1995 
Mustang caused to 2-year old Samantha Roblez.

    Dallas trial lawyer, E. Todd Tracy, who represented Roblez, said "This
Texas jury sent a message to Ford that it's time to stop killing and crippling
children with poorly designed airbags that inflate when they're not needed."
Tracy believes of 22 airbag trials that Ford has tried, this case is the first
airbag trial that the automaker has lost.  During the trial Joseph Wills, a
Ford engineer, acknowledged that "Ford does not design its airbags to protect
children."  According to Tracy, Samantha Roblez' forward-facing child seat was
in the front seat of her mother's 1995 Mustang when she hit another vehicle
that had stopped in front of her.  Tracy and his experts put the impact speed
at below Ford's 8-14 mph deployment threshold.  Ford's experts placed the
speed at 9.5 to 11 miles per hour.  The impact of the airbag severed the
child's spine at C3-4, leaving her a respirator-dependant quadriplegic.

    Tracy said that the mid-mounted, horizontally deploying airbag, Ford's low
deployment threshold, and the improperly placed sensors were design features
that lead to this needless injury.  The airbag deployed in a crash so minor
that it caused only minor damage to the Mustang.  The driver of the vehicle
that was hit drove off and was never identified.  During trial, Tracy pointed
out that airbags in Ford's European cars are designed to deploy only in severe
crashes, above 18.6 miles per hour.  Tracy also pointed out in trial that Ford
had no engineering, scientific or medical basis for its 8-14 mph airbag
threshold.

    E. Todd Tracy and Bill Dippel of Dallas, Texas, used the following experts
and consultants during the trial:

    Ralph Hoar & Associates, Arlington, VA, Research & Analysis
    Steve Syson, Goleta, CA, Airbag Design
    William Rosenbluth, Reston, VA, Airbag Speed
    Steve Irwin, Dallas, TX, Accident Reconstruction
    Marc Krouse, Ft. Worth, TX, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner of Tarrant
     County Texas
    Richard Moore, San Antonio, TX, Life Care Plan
    Dr. Andrew Gelfand, Dallas, TX, Pediatric Pulmonologist
    Sheldon Lee Stucki, Arlington, VA, Accident Data Analysis
    Tony Sances, Santa Barbara, CA, Biomechanics
    Jim Mundo, Canton, MI, Ford Engineering/Design History
    Ted Zinke, Santa Barbara, CA, Sensor Development