Georgia Woman Wins $3 Million for Collapsing Ford Tempo Seat

Eddie Farah

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Ford says it intends to appeal a $3 million judgment against the automaker for a faulty Ford Tempo seat design.

The adult children of an Augusta woman, 76-year-old Mary Reese who died when her Ford was rear-ended filed the suit in Cobb County, just one of 70 lawsuits that Ford is facing over the Tempo's front seat that breaks from its supports and ends up in the back seat in rear-enders.

There were no punatives awarded which usually means that the lawyers didn't prove that Ford knew or should have known its vehicle was faulty and failed to do anything about it. The defective Tempos were made from 1984 to 1994 and many are still on the road.

Ford which will appeal says the crash itself killed Reese. In her November 2, 2002 accident, a gravel hauling truck rear-ended her 1994 Tempo and drove it down a steep embankment.

Ford claimed at trial that the seats were designed to yield to protect front-seat passengers by absorbing the energy of a rear-end crash and to protect rear passengers from being driven into an "overly rigid" seat back in frontal impact collisions.

In the past, Ford has decided to secretly settle mass lawsuits against defective design rather than try them in court.

For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.