$40M awarded to Georgia woman over faulty Ford

A Lamar County woman who said a transmission defect in her Ford Explorer led to her paralysis was awarded $40 million in damages by a DeKalb County jury late Wednesday.

The jury’s award to Jessica Mundy includes $30 million in punitive damages, $9 million in compensatory damages to her and $1 million to her husband. Ford Motor Co. and Legacy Ford in McDonough, where Mundy purchased the 2004 Explorer that ran her over, were defendants in the suit.

The verdict in the trial comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into consumer complaints that some Ford Explorers and some of the automaker’s Mercury Mountaineers manufactered in model years 2002 through 2005 unexpectedly come out of park.

Mundy, who was 23 at the time of the November 2005 accident, contended in her suit that motorists put their shifters into park but that a design defect would cause Explorers to suddenly go into reverse. In her suit, she said she got out of the Explorer to mail a package in McDonough and the vehicle ran her over fracturing her spine.

Her Savannah attorney, Jeff Harris, presented videotaped depositions of three people who said ther Ford vehicles had similar instances of suddenly going out of park. Harris said a settlement agreement has been reached but its terms are confidential.

Ford officials did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment Thursday but in an earlier written statement, the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker said Mundy’s operation of the vehicle led to the accident, not anything wrong with the Explorer itself.

The jury didn’t see it that way, Mundy said in an interview Thursday,

“It tells me that 12 people who don’t know me, believe that I’m telling the truth,” Mundy, now 26, said. Mundy, who was trained as an accountant and had been a state employee said she has been unable to work since the accident. Mundy said she feels she now has closure.

“I’m just going to try and move on with my life,” she said. “This doesn’t change anything that’s happened, but I do have some sense of vindication knowing that there was something wrong with the car and it gives me peace of mind knowing that that was made clear.”