Ford hit with record $2.5B verdict in Georgia truck rollover suit
Ford Motor Co. owes more than $2.5 billion to the family of a couple killed in a 2022 rollover in one of the company’s “Super Duty” trucks, a Georgia federal jury found, marking the largest verdict in Georgia history.
A jury in Columbus found that Ford was mostly at fault for the deaths of two people after their truck rolled over in an accident that occurred just days after a separate state court jury issued a $1.7 billion verdict against the automaker in a similar suit.
Herman, 74, and Debra Mills, 64, were driving in Decatur County on Aug. 22, 2022, in their 2015 Ford F250 “Super Duty” truck when it rolled over and the roof crushed down on them, according to the suit. They died in the crash.
Debra Mills was driving the truck with Herman Mills in the passenger seat when the truck struck a driveway drainage culvert, causing the vehicle to go airborne for about 81 feet before smashing into the ground and flipping over, according to filings in the case.
“It was only a half roll, yet the roof catastrophically collapsed into the passenger compartment,” James E. Butler, the lead attorney for the Mills family, said in a news release.
Attorneys for the Mills’ children, James “Dusty” Brogdon, Ronald “Rusty” Brogdon and Jason Mills, had argued that the roofs of all 1999-2016 “Super Duty” trucks were “indisputably weak” compared to their F150 models and said the roof on the Mills’ other F250 from 2002 was similar but not the same.
Ford argued that the deformation of the roof in the crash did not cause the couple’s death.
“While our sympathies go out to the Brogdon family, the verdict is impermissibly extreme and not supported by the evidence,” a spokesperson said. The company noted that juries in other cases found that the roofs of the “Super Duty” trucks were not defective, and said that Ford will appeal.
The motor company also argued that Debra Mills suffered a cardiac attack as she was driving the vehicle, which Ford says caused her to crash in the first place.
Butler, the attorney for the family, said that Debra Mills died on the scene but that it took first responders 26 minutes to pry Herman Mills out from under the collapsed roof and he died in a Florida hospital later.
The jury, in the verdict form, assigned 85% of the fault for the Mills’ death to Ford with the remaining 15% given to Debra Mills.
Dusty Brogdon, executor of the Mills’ estate, along with brothers Rusty Brogdon and Jason Mills filed the lawsuit against Ford on May 23, 2023, in Harris County, but the case ended up in federal court in Columbus, court records show.
The jury rendered the verdict in two phases, one for compensatory damages on Thursday awarding $30.5 million and the other for punitive damages on Friday awarding the other $2.5 billion.