Columbus jury renders verdict in $2.5 billion lawsuit against Ford Motor Company
A Columbus jury rendered a “phase 2” verdict Friday of $2.5 billion in punitive damages in a case against the Ford Motor Company, according to a news release from Butler Prather LLP, a Columbus-based law firm.
The case, Brogdon (Mills) v. Ford Motor Company, involved the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, who died as a result of their injuries after their 2015 Ford F250 “Super Duty” truck rolled over and the roof crushed down on them in August 2022 in Decatur County, according to the news release.
The Mills were founders of Mills Welding & Fabrication Services and retired in 2019, according to the release.
The release says the Mills truck left the road, hit a culvert covered by tall grass, vaulted into the air, struck on its front and then flopped over. The roof collapsed into the passenger compartment, the release says.
The release says Debra Mills died at the scene and Herman Mills died nine days later in a Tallahassee, Florida, hospital.
The release says, “The roofs on all 1999-2016 “Super Duty” trucks are indisputably weak.” The release claims those trucks have a strength-to-weight rating (SWR) of 1.1 when the minimum SWR rating to get a “good” roof strength rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is 4.0.
“Ford contended that the roofs on the 1999-2016 ‘Super Duty’ trucks are ‘absolutely safe’ and there was nothing wrong with them,” the release says. The release says, “Ford also contended, as it has for decades, that roof strength doesn’t matter — that there is no ‘causal relationship’ between roof strength and injuries in rollover wrecks.”
The release also states, “That argument has been rejected by the federal government agency charged with automotive safety, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), and by the IIHS.”
The lawsuit was filed May 23, 2023, by James E. “Dusty” Brogdon and his brothers Ronald B. “Rusty” Brogdon and Jason Mills, according to the release. The release says the case was filed in the Columbus Division of the Middle District of Georgia because James E. Brogdon lives in Harris County.
The case was tried in the United States District Court, Middle District of Georgia, Columbus Division, before U.S. District Judge Clay Land.
This phase 2 verdict comes after the the jury rendered its phase 1 compensatory damages verdict Thursday for $30.5 million, according to the release.
“Ford has known for 26 years that people were getting killed and hurt by these weak roofs,” James “Jim” Butler Jr., lead counsel for the Mills family, said in the news release. “Ford has constantly refused to admit the danger or warn of the risk.”
“We were very pleased to be able to help the Mills family,” Ramsey Prather, co-counsel for the Mills family, said in the news release. “Perhaps this verdict will serve to do what Ford refuses to do — warn American citizens of the danger.”
A spokesman for Ford, Richard Binhammer, wrote to the Ledger-Enquirer in an email, “While our sympathies go out to the Brogdon family, the verdict is impermissibly extreme and not supported by the evidence. We plan to appeal. Juries in three prior cases have been asked the same question and determined that theses vehicles are not defective.”
In addition to Butler and Prather, the Mills family was represented by:
- Dan Philyaw and Allison Brennan Bailey of Butler Prather (Atlanta, Columbus, Savannah)
- LaRae Moore of Page Scrantom Sprouse Tucker & Ford (Columbus)
- Frank Lowrey and Mike Terry of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore (Atlanta).
The Mills family’s legal team was assisted by chief investigator Nick Giles and paralegals Sarah Andrews and Isabelle Brooms, all of Butler Prather, and IT specialist Tyrah Hammonds of Legal Technical Services in Atlanta.
According to the news release, Ford was represented at trial by:
- Elizabeth Wright of Thompson Hine (Cleveland, Ohio)
- Charles Peeler and Harold Melton of Troutman Pepper (Atlanta)
- Michael Boorman and Phillip Henderson of Watson Spence (Atlanta)
- Paul Malek of Huie, Fernambucq & Stewart (Birmingham Alabama)
- Michael Eady of Thompson Coe, Austin Texas.
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 5:23 PM.