Ford Motor Co. took a big hit Monday when a California state appellate court stood by its own earlier decision to award $82.6 million in damages to a paraplegic who claimed faulty design caused her car to crash.
The decision by San Diego’s 4th District Court of Appeal was somewhat surprising because the U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the state court to reconsider its original ruling in light of Philip Morris USA v. Williams, 127 S.Ct. 1057. In that decision, the nation’s high court held last year that jurors cannot punish defendants for harm to third parties when determining punitive damages.
