March 3, 2004
Ford must pay for girl's injury
By Beth Warren, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Car giant liable for paralysis; $33 million may just be start

Rhonda Sasser hurried from the courtroom showing tears of joy Tuesday after a Fulton County jury awarded her family more than $33 million in compensation for an auto crash that left her little girl paralyzed.

Jurors found Ford Motor Co. liable for the injuries Kelsey Sasser suffered in a 2000 accident outside Blakely in southwest Georgia. Kelsey, who was 6 at the time of the accident, was left paralyzed from the chest down when a rear fold-down seat in the family's Lincoln LS collapsed on her back. A defective latch was blamed for allowing the seat to collapse.

Today, jurors will consider whether the world's No. 3 automaker should be hit with millions more in punitive damages.

The Sassers, who now live in Cobb County, face mounting medical bills for their daughter, Kelsey, 9, a student at Sope Creek Elementary School, wasn't in court for the verdict.

"It's just such a relief," the Sassers' attorney, Andrew Scherffius, said after the jury left for the day.

"It's just a lot of responsibility to come into court and represent a child against a company like Ford, or any other corporation," Scherffius said.

In the second part of the court battle, Scherffius will try to convince the jury that Ford officials showed a "conscious indifference of the consequences" for failing to recall its 2000 Lincoln LS sedan with the seat latch defect. He is seeking additional penalties to punish Ford for its inaction.

It's believed to be the first lawsuit involving such a problem with this car model. Scherffius told jurors Ford was aware of the risk that fold-down seats could collapse in collisions as early as 1993 - before Kelsey was born. The automaker also knew of the problem with the latch design in the 2000 sedan as early as 1996, he argued.

Ford changed the design of the latch system on 2001 models but didn't recall the 2000 sedan, Scherffius said.

"Ford, even today, has not fixed the problem," Scherffius said during his closing argument.

Ford attorneys have argued that a recall wasn't necessary.

Defense attorney Don Dawson of Detroit tried to convince jurors there were minor problems with the latch system in a small percentage of the 200 sedans, but not with the Sassers' sedan.

If the jury decides to award punitive damages, the Sassers' attorney wants to bring in an economist to testify about the worth of the multibillion-dollar corporation and the millions of vehicles it sells.

Ford's attorneys, however, want Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter to allow the panel to consider only the possible risk to the limited number of consumers who bought the 2000 sedan in Georgia. Ford estimates 650 vehicles were sold here and that only a small percentage likely would have had a latch defect.

The judge said he would decide the issue today.