Our firm has filed a personal injury lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Etowah County, Alabama against Ford Motor Co. and TRW Automotive. On February 11, 2007, Thomas and Gail Huie were returning from a trip to Mississippi with friends. Mr. Huie was the front seat passenger in a 2004 Ford Expedition. The vehicle lost control and rolled over on I-59 in Jefferson County. During the rollover, the seat belt holding Mr. Huie spooled out several inches allowing him to be partially ejected from the vehicle. As a result, he received massive internal abdominal injuries that have left him severely permanently disabled.

Our investigation in this case revealed that Ford Motor Co. and TRW Automotive purposely designed the retractor to spool out in frontal collisions in order to improve crash test results. These government and IIHS crash test numbers have become important tools in marketing the Expedition. While the defendants’ actions were a quick way to improve the results in frontal collisions, this spooling of seat belt webbing is extremely dangerous in a vehicle rollover. It’s significant that rollover testing is not conducted on these vehicles. Chris Glover and Ben Baker from the firm will handle this case for Mr. and Mrs. Huie.