Seminole County jury decides Ford should not pay $25 million for fatal crash

SANFORD — After four hours of deliberations Thursday, a jury decided Ford Motor Co. should not have to pay $25 million to the family of a 19-year-old Sanford woman who was killed when her Ford Explorer went out of control and flipped several times.

Katherine “Katie” Parker was driving north on Interstate 95 on June 21, 2010, when her left rear tire came apart. She lost control, hit a guardrail, was ejected, suffered head injuries and died the next day.

She was not wearing a seat belt.

Her family filed suit against Ford, alleging the company knew about design flaws that made the Explorer prone to rollovers.

The case went to trial Feb. 20. The six-member jury began deliberations about 3 p.m. Thursday.

The family’s attorneys, Skip Lynch and John Romano, told jurors that Ford had long known about design flaws but opted not to correct them. They showed jurors reports from engineers, warning that the Explorer tended to tip onto two wheels and “skate.”

For failing to fix those problems, Romano said, the company should pay Parker’s family $25 million in damages.

“Ford accepted the risk that somebody might die in a rollover, and I ask you to hold Ford responsible for accepting that risk,” Lynch said.

But attorneys for Ford blamed the crash on the tire and said Parker would have survived if she had fastened her seat belt.

“The truth is the Explorer is not defective,” said Ford attorney Greg Schuck. “The truth is the Explorer is not the cause of the accident.”

Both sides agreed the tread on Parker’s left rear tire peeled away.

Ford attorney John Seipp Jr. described that tire as a 4-year-old replacement — not original equipment — and said it had 70,000 to 80,000 miles on it.

The crash was in Brevard County near Malabar. Parker was headed from Vero Beach to Sanford to visit her mother, Lynch said.

Crash photos show the burned-out shell of the Explorer, a 2000 model with 170,000 miles on it. It had veered to the left, slammed into a guardrail, then flipped end-over-end two or three times. Sometime before it came to rest, it caught fire.

Parker had been traveling at 70 to 80 mph, Seipp told jurors, and was thrown 60 feet from the wreckage. She was not crushed by the vehicle, he said. Her fatal injuries were caused when her body hit the ground.

A medical examiner ruled that she died of blunt-force trauma to the head.

The force of the end-over-end crash was so great, Seipp said, it sent the hood of the SUV flying onto an overpass 22 feet overhead.

The suit, filed the year after the crash, also named Cooper Tire, the company that manufactured the tire that came apart, and Action Gator Tires, the retailer that sold and installed them. Both companies settled with Parker’s family before the case went to trial. Lynch would not say how much each company agreed to pay.

rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6394

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rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com or 407-650-6394