Posted on April 2, 2019 by Arie George
I’m sure our readers will remember the multiple lawsuits filed against Ford in 2013, with attendant heavy media coverage, claiming that certain Ford vehicles were prone to unintended acceleration (UIA). The cases were consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. On February 27, 2018 the district court granted Ford’s motions to exclude the testimony of the plaintiffs’ three experts and for summary judgment, because “none of [the plaintiffs’] experts can say that [the UIA] events were the result of the alleged defect with the ETC [electronic throttle control] system. Quite simply, Plaintiffs produced no experts who can testify that [the] alleged [UIAs] were proximately caused by the alleged defect rather than some other known cause for such events.” The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has just released an opinion affirming the judgment below, http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/181470.P.pdf: “Because the Plaintiffs could not prove their theory of defect and thus fail to meet the essential element of causation, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment on all claims to Ford.”
Without the ability to prove causation, the case against Ford is effectively over.
