Miles v. Ford Motor Company

Feb 22, 2021  •  personal injury

Willie Searcy, his brother and step-father were driving to his friend’s house when their lives changed in an instant. A car came across the highway and hit them head on. Willie’s father and step-brother walked away at the scene. Willie was left to fight for his life, rendered a quadriplegic, after slack in his seatbelt literally ripped his skull off his spine.

Challenge: The prior attempts to demonstrate this type of automobile defect were rarely, if ever, successful. Because of the serious liability and damage issues, multiple experts would be required and a comprehensive plan of attack to deal with the large resources used by Ford Motor Company in these cases to overwhelm claimants.

Solution: With a track record of products liability success, we retained the best experts available and sought extensive documentation from Ford on the vehicle, its complaints, and its testing. After receiving the information, painstaking effort was use to review, catalog and prioritize matters by our attorneys, staff and experts. Finding damaging tests and documents, a theme was designed to show Ford’s decision to place profits over safety and to utilize safer designs only for more expensive vehicles, despite the cost being trivial.

Result: A jury returned a verdict for $40,000,000.00 in favor of Willie Searcy, his brother, his mother and stepfather.