A New Jersey appellate court has reinstated a claim that a design defect caused a 2000 Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle to roll over and crash, causing serious injuries to the driver. Ford had previously won the case in trial court after Ford presented evidence that the injured driver, Patricio Paredes, caused the SUV rollover crash by over-correcting the steering, which they said would have caused any vehicle to roll over. Our source for this blog was this news report in the New Jersey Law Journal.

The appellate court ordered a retrial stating that the trial judge did not inform jurors that the evidence of the driver’s alleged negligence had nothing to do with the primary issue in this case – which was if the Explorer’s design was defective. The trial judge would have needed to give the jury such specific instructions had Ford asserted “contributory negligence,” which basically means that the driver caused the crash and would have crashed irrespective of what vehicle he was driving. But Ford abandoned the contributory negligence assertion before trial.

This particular ruling is important because Ford uses “contributory negligence” as a strategy, making the case that the accident was the driver’s fault as opposed to product or design defects in the vehicle. Paredes suffered skull fractures, respiratory failure and traumatic brain injuries in the August 24, 2001 rollover accident. He apparently required several weeks of care and rehabilitation. The serious injuries have left him with lifelong cognitive deficiencies.

I’m glad that this injured victim will now have another day in court to prove his case and establish that the 2000 Ford Explorer he was driving was the product of defective design.
Our firm has conducted several crash tests independently at our own expense. These independent studies have shown us that Ford SUVs are unstable. These defective vehicles have design defects that can cause catastrophic injury or death to its occupants in the event of a rollover crash. Shame on Ford for trying to shift the blame on the injured driver instead of admitting their product defects!

There is no question that the Explorer should have been equipped with electronic stability control, smaller wheels and a wider wheel base to lower its center of gravity. These vehicles’ high center of gravity makes them prone to rollovers. We wish Patricio Paredes the very best in his new trial.