The four years of preparation for two civil lawsuits against Ford Motor Company now resides in a three-foot-high stack of court documents at the Greenville County Courthouse.
The product-liability cases were first filed in December 2002, three years after a single-vehicle crash in Laurens County that killed one passenger and left the 17-year-old driver in a wheelchair.
Jury selection and pre-trial motions began Monday. Testimony is expected to begin later in the week.
Allegations against Ford and three other defendants are centered on the seat belts and speed control of a 1995 Ford Explorer XLT.
According to records from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, Sonya Watson of Clinton, was driving the Explorer in the northbound lane of Interstate 385. Four other people were traveling with her, including her grandmother and other relatives.
Laurens County Coroner Nick Nichols said the SUV rolled over several times after Watson lost control.
“It looks like she was going several miles an hour over the speed limit,” Nichols told WYFF News 4, while reading over the incident report from 1999.
Nichols said the SUV hit a grass median area. “She overcorrected and, of course, then this started the rolling sensation. This particular vehicle flipped about three to four times.” The coroner’s report said one passenger, 46-year-old Patricia Carter of Clinton, died from multiple trauma after she was ejected from the vehicle.
Carter’s husband, Willie Carter, filed a wrongful death suit against Ford, which made the vehicle, TRW, Inc. and TRW Vehicle Safety Systems, which made its seat belts, and D&D Motors, where the vehicle was purchased.
The lawsuit claims that “The Explorer at issue was defective in several particulars, including the front and rear seat occupant restraint systems, the front seat system, the chassis, steering and component subassemblies, the electric cruise control and its acceleration systems. … The alleged defects caused the vehicle to accelerate suddenly and roll over.”
A second suit against Ford and other defendants was filed by Watson and other family members, including her younger sister, Stacy Watson, who was also in the vehicle at the time of the accident.
That lawsuit says “This is a products liability action claiming damages for bodily injury, pain and suffering, medical expenses, permanent impairment, permanent disfigurement, lost wages, parental loss of consortium, as well as punitive damages. This action also includes claims for breach of warranty, unfair trade practice, fraud, fraud on the market and general negligence.”
The suit claims “the design, selection, inspection, testing, manufacture, assembly, equipping markets, distribution and sale of an un-crashworthy, defective, and unreasonably dangerous automobile as well as general negligence.”
Opening statements and testimony will likely begin on Tuesday. According to the court docket, the trial is expected to last three weeks.