Robert M.N. Palmer and William Petrus, The Law Offices of Robert M.N. Palmer, P.C., Springfield, MO and Mike Easley, Easley Hicky & Hudson, Forrest City, AR, attorneys for plaintiff. Edwin Lowther, Wright Lindsey & Jennings LLP, Little Rock, AR and Lawrence A. Sutter, Sutter O'Connell Mannion & Farchione, Cleveland, OH, attorneys for defendant.

On the evening of November 29, 1998, Plaintiff Constance Twining was returning to her home in Dyersburg, TN, after spending Thanksgiving with her daughter. She was driving her 1990 Ford Mustang LX and was passing through Jonesboro, AR just before 8:00 p.m. She meant to go north on Hwy. 49 in Jonesboro, missed her exit, and got off Hwy. 63 at Cottage Home Road.

Just north of Hwy. 63, Cottage Home Road has an “S” curve where the road travels north, makes a 90 degree right turn to the east, followed by a turn to the left heading back north. Plaintiff was traveling approximately 50-mph, within the speed limit, as she approached the curve. She was not able to negotiate the turn to the right and her car left the roadway. As the investigating officer stated in his report, “Being at night and Cottage Home Road not being lit with street lights it would be hard to see the curve until you were right on top of it.”

Plaintiff’s 1990 Mustang LX crossed the ditch and collided with the bank on the far side of the ditch. The car went airborne for some distance, landed in the field, and rolled to a stop. The air bags deployed upon impact with the bank of the ditch.

At the point where the 1990 Mustang went airborne and the point where it landed, Plaintiff was exposed to vertical loads—forces that caused her body to moved downward relative to the car. The downward force of her body caused the left front support for the seat in which she was riding to fail, moving the seat into contact with the structural components below it. The seat bottom’s inability to support Plaintiff allowed her to completely bottom out the seat and strike the floor pan. She sustained a compression fracture with dislocation of her T-12 vertebra. Plaintiff suffers from paraplegia and its resulting sequelae.

Plaintiff alleged negligent design and strict product against Ford Motor Company for failure to design the driver's seat in the 1990 Mustang LX to withstand foreseeable vertical loading.

Total medical: $161,117
Total economic loss: $2,709,000

Case settled for a confidential amount on May 19, 2003.