Auto Defect: Crossvilee Chronicle (Tennessee), "$7 million awarded in Ford Motor Co. lawsuit"

          A Cumberland County record $7 million judgment was returned by a jury in a product liability lawsuit against Ford Motor Company filed by a Morgan County woman who suffered permanent injury in a 2002 traffic accident. The lawsuit centered around a seat that Betty and Martin Potter claimed broke during a crash and resulted in Betty Potter suffering a broken back that has left her a paraplegic.
          The lawsuit and states that on Sept. 26, 2002, Betty Potter was traveling toward Crossville on Genesis Rd. about three miles north of Crossville, driving her 1997 Ford Escort when she entered a curve and slid off the rain-slickened road, crashing into a road sign, spinning around and slamming backwards into a tree. When the compact car struck the tree, Potter's seat collapsed, allowing her to be ejected backwards into the backseat of the vehicle. This resulted in the fracture of several ribs and vertebrae and a severed spinal cord.
          In his charge to the jury, Judge Maddux explained that it was the theory of the Potters that the seat was defective in that it should not have failed in the crash, and that if the seat had been stronger, she would not have been ejected into the backseat and would not have suffered her injuries. Ford Motor Company denied negligence in the case. The jury was charged with deciding at what degree each party in the lawsuit was at fault, and then assessing damages. After deliberating on the afternoon of Feb. 11 the jury found that Ford Motor Company was at fault 70 percent and Betty Potter was at fault 30 percent