Open source traffic analysis

ABA Home
Article

Court Orders Review of Rollover Award

Posted May 14, 2007, 11:40 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The U.S. Supreme Court today ordered California courts to re-evaluate a multi-million dollar award in a Ford rollover case.

Benetta Buell-Wilson was paralyzed when she swerved to avoid hitting a metal object and her Ford Explorer rolled over. A jury originally awarded her $369 million, but appeals courts cut the award to $82.6 million, including $55 million in punitives, according to the Associated Press.

The high court asked for a re-evalution in light of its February ruling overturning a $79.5 million punitive award to the estate of a smoker. The court said then that jurors may not base a punitive damages award on harm to nonparties, although such harm could be weighed when evaluating the reprehensibility of a defendant’s conduct.

E-Mail This Story


(Separate multiple addresses with a comma.)




Share This Story

URL to share: http://www.abajournal.com/news/court-orders-review-of-rollover-award/

Title: Court Orders Review of Rollover Award


Comments

    Be the first to comment.


Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.



Subscribe

Get the ABA Journal the way you want it — in print, online, by e-mail — and when you want it — monthly, weekly, daily or as news breaks.



Subscribe via RSS
Subscribe to the mobile edition
Subscribe to the monthly magazine


Return to top