Ford Ordered to Face New Trial Over Van Acceleration Accident

Ford Motor Company, ordered by a Florida judge to face a new trial in a lawsuit it previously won, can’t dispute that a defect caused an Aerostar van to accelerate out of control.

A state court jury in Bushnell, Florida, cleared Ford of liability in February 2010 in a lawsuit brought by a woman who was left paralyzed from the waist down when the van she was riding in crashed. The woman, Peggy Stimpson, and her husband sued Ford in 2004, claiming a defect in the 1991 Aerostar’s cruise control system could trigger unintended acceleration. They also claimed the company destroyed or concealed documents related to the risk.

Circuit Court Judge William T. Swigert reversed the jury’s verdict and ordered a new trial on damages only. Swigert entered judgment on liability for Stimpson, barring Ford from claiming in the new trial that the vehicle wasn’t defective.

“The court finds by clear and convincing evidence that defendant Ford Motor Co. engaged in misconduct justifying the striking of its answer and the entry of judgment in plaintiffs’ favor on liability,” Swigert said in his July 20 decision. “These acts of misconduct, individually and collectively, constitute a calculated plan to interfere with the judicial system’s ability to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the jury.”

Ford presented testimony at trial it knew was untrue and withheld information from the public about internal reports on sudden acceleration incidents, Swigert said. The company also destroyed some documents, he said.

Swigert said the Stimpsons would be entitled to a new trial, even if an appeals court reverses his ruling barring Ford’s defense of a defect. He said the new jury would also consider whether Ford would owe punitive damages to the Stimpsons.

Ford will appeal Swigert’s decision, Marcey Evans, a spokeswoman for the Dearborn, Michigan-based company, said yesterday in an e-mail. “Ford strongly disagrees with Judge Swigert’s decision, which overturned a unanimous jury verdict in Ford’s favor in this alleged sudden acceleration case,” Evans said.

The Florida “jury carefully considered all of the evidence and unanimously agreed with Ford that the accident was caused by Mr. Stimpson’s unfortunate mistake of pressing the accelerator pedal instead of the brake, not a defect in the product,” she said.

Peggy Stimpson’s husband, Ralph, claimed in court papers that when he turned on the vehicle’s ignition on Oct. 28, 2003, and shifted to “drive,” the Aerostar took off without him hitting the accelerator pedal. Even after applying the brakes, the vehicle wouldn’t stop accelerating and eventually struck a utility pole, he said.

The plaintiffs claimed that “Ford had fraudulently concealed this defect,” Tom Murray, their lawyer, said in phone interview yesterday. “The order strikes their defenses. The case now goes to trial on damages only.” A new trial won’t happen until after and unless the ruling becomes final on appeal, he said.

Ford developed a series of service investigation reports related to sudden acceleration, Swigert said in his 46-page ruling. Ford deemed these reports as “unrelated to safety, and thus destroyed them within one year after they were created,” the judge said. “However, those reports were patently relevant to safety and thus required by federal law to be kept for five years.”

Had Ford disclosed these reports, “the government would have discovered years ago that electronic failures in the cruise control system is a cause of sudden acceleration,” he said.

Swigert said Ford told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that there were no components that could cause sudden acceleration and that if an incident had been caused by a design failure, “it would leave physical evidence” of multiple failures.

“These claims were false and are contradicted” by the service investigative reports, an internal Ford study and engineering reports commissioned by the company’s technical affairs committee, Swigert said.

The federal agency found no defects in Ford vehicles related to sudden acceleration in a 1989 examination. Ford knew this study was “predicated upon false information,” Swigert said. “Ford’s copious use of that report throughout the trial was likewise misleading and fraudulent.”

The case is Stimpson v. Ford Motor Co., 2004-CA-13, Circuit Court for Sumter County, Florida (Bushnell).