California Supreme Court to Review Punitive Damages Award in Ford Rollover Case

Article in Bloomberg.com -- Ford Gets California Review of $82.6 Million Rollover Verdict, by Edvard Pettersson. (H/t to AmLaw Litigation Daily.)  Here's an excerpt:

Ford Motor Co., the second-biggest U.S.-based automaker, will get a review from California's highest court of an $82.6 million verdict stemming from a 2002 rollover crash that left a woman paralyzed.

The California Supreme Court, in a notice posted today on its Web site, granted Ford's petition for review of a California appeals panel's decision not to reduce the $55 million punitive damages part of the verdict or to grant a new trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year ordered the appeals court in San Diego to reconsider the punitive damages in light of a decision in a smoker's lawsuit against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris unit that said punitive damages couldn't be based on harm to people not involved in the court case. The appeals court said March 10 there was no evidence the Ford jury based its award on harm to people who weren't part of the lawsuit.

BGS