Robert M.N. Palmer, The Law Offices of PalmerOliver, P.C. and T. John Ward, Jr., Law Office of T. John Ward, Jr. for plaintiff; and Thomas Klein and John Leshinsky, Bowman & Brooke LLP, and Ronald Wamsted, Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons LLP, for defendant.

Chance Neff (3 years, 6 months) was the properly restrained right rear passenger in his parents’ 1997 Ford Explorer XLT on the afternoon of September 11, 2003. His mother, Kelly Neff, was driving the Explorer, traveling from their home in Iowa, to Texas. Chance was secured in a Graco Belt Positioning Booster Seat Model 8481, by the right rear 3-point seat belt in the Explorer.   Kelly Neff ran slightly off the road to the left, and overcorrected to the right, causing the Explorer to go into a broad slide. The vehicle then overturned and rolled passenger side leading, approximately 3 times across the median and northbound lanes of U.S. 69, coming to rest on its roof.

The first witnesses on the scene found Chance hanging upside down, motionless, still belted into the vehicle in the child seat. The witnesses extricated Chance from the vehicle, and performed CPR in a fruitless effort to save the child. When emergency personnel arrived, Chance was totally unresponsive. He had suffered fatal head injuries. 

Roof crush/inadequate roof strength, and “Forgotten Child.” The roof structures of the 1997 Ford Explorer were seriously inadequate to withstand the loading from a foreseeable rollover event. As a result of weak structures in this case, the roof and pillars were displaced laterally, intruding into occupant space, displacing the seatbelt upper anchorage (D-ring) thereby introducing slack into the restraint, and exposing the upper door/window frame to forces which kinked and distorted it into contact with Chance Neff –causing his fatal head injuries. In parallel with the inadequacies of the Explorer roof structure, the rear three-point belt system and the rear seating system of the 1997 Ford Explorer were not adequately designed for effective protection of children 4 to 8 years of age (the “Forgotten Child”). The restraints are inadequate, and defectively designed for use by children either using the belts themselves, or (as in this case) by children properly sitting in a belt-positioning booster seat, and are not effective in keeping child passengers in position during collision or rollover events.

The case settled for a confidential amount one week before Trial was scheduled to begin.