Last month, a judge at Central Florida took an extreme step of lmpla the verdict of the judges in the case against Ford company. Ford won the trial, but the judge found Ford committed fraud throughout the sentence been misled the jury, the verdict.
The case involved a woman who is being sued Ford after his wife was paralyzed in a car accident. They claimed that ??????? was caused by a sudden acceleration of their minivan Ford caused by a design flaw of cruise control in the minivan. Ford, however, claimed that the cruise control was confident that the accident should have been caused by driver error. After a four-week, the jury found in favor of Ford.
This typically would end the dispute. Judges trying identify jury decide the facts, usually don't second guess their decisions. In this case was the exception. Decision exception, thoroughly documented, judge exit multiple and calculated acts of fraud committed by Ford. Among the findings of the judge:
1) Ford was warned interference electromagnetism could cause cruise control to malfunction by one of the engineers in the mid-1970s. Ford ignored these warnings, take measures available to protect against the risk.
2) during the trial, claimed that Government-funded research Ford supported its claim that the sudden acceleration not caused any design flaw. This research is to reach a conclusion-but only because Ford had misled editors also research. The judge found ????? Save internal reports and studies in ??????? them into reaching a conclusion.
3) Ford instituted a policy of destroying the sudden acceleration of vehicles in her reports after one year, although Government regulations require documents relating to the safety of the vehicle is retained for five years. Clearing these reports from the relevant information about sudden acceleration cases being discovered.
4) Ford claimed lab tests have shown electronic components involved in cruise control to fail. However, these tests were done only when the electronic components were taken out of the vehicle. This isolates the components of the other vehicle which can cause electromagnetic interference in first place. Therefore, while Ford's statement was technically accurate, was completely misleading because lab tests failed to simulate actual driving conditions.
5) on the supreme irony, of lawyers Ford during the trial that lawyers for the husband and wife were from Ford's test results. The judge found that personal attack was justified, "sullied the entire proceedings."
Decision of Judge Mayer light on what lawyers known for years: corporate defendants sometimes hide evidence and behave badly. Temptation to hide evidence especially large corruption cases, where the company product and could face expensive if their product retrieval is damaged. We hope the decision of judge deters companies scathing large practice fraud hiding in future cases.
The case is Stimpson v. Ford company. The judge was William Swigert, decision dated 20 July 2011.
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