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Jury sides with Ford in SUV rollover crash

Nathan Maier lost control of the SUV on Interstate 30 in Dallas. The vehicle went into the median, veered back onto the highway and rolled over three to four times

GREENVILLE, Texas (CNN) -- A civil court jury sided with Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday, saying the automaker did not knowingly design a faulty vehicle that resulted in a 1995 Explorer rolling over, killing two people.

The plaintiffs in the case -- the widow of the driver of the sport utility vehicle and a passenger who was thrown out of it -- had sought $58.5 million in damages.

The crash happened on April 16, 1997, when driver Nathan Maier and three friends were traveling back to Dallas on Interstate 30 after a fishing trip. As a car started to change lanes in front of him, Maier swerved and lost control of the vehicle. The SUV went into the median, veered back onto the highway and then rolled over three or four times.

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Maier, a father of three, and passenger Bill Collard were killed. Allen Beene, who was thrown from the vehicle, and John York were injured. Maier's widow, Jean, and Beene were the plaintiffs.

The 12-person jury deliberated for about three hours before reaching its decision.

The central issue was: Did Ford Motor Co. knowingly design a faulty vehicle and was the automaker negligent in its design of that vehicle?

The jury responded, "No," to those questions, essentially saying the driver was to blame for the fatal crash.

In closing arguments, Lenny Vitullo, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said Ford knew of flaws in the Explorer's designs and Ford engineers proposed four design changes to it in 1989, but only two were implemented.

"Nathan Maier would be alive today if Ford had satisfied its own design goals," Vitullo said. "Nathan Maier had two seconds to make an instinctive decision. Ford had 10 years to make their decision."

Ron Cabiness, the lead attorney for Ford, said the SUV didn't roll over "because of a defect."

"Tremendous demands were put on that truck and it did all it could do," he said. "You cannot make any vehicle immune from rollover when it goes off the road."

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Bridgestone/Firestone
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Consumers Union

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