Chrysler Compensates Teen Paralyzed by Uncrashworthy Pickup

Chrysler will pay a Texas teenager who was rendered paraplegic when the 2014 Dodge Ram 1500 he was driving to work crashed.

The crash that resulted in the teenager’s suit involved a sequence of events that began when the Ram left the main lanes of a roadway. The pickup traveled down the slope of a grassy shoulder and then struck a private drive, became airborne and nose-dived into the ground. The Ram then rolled end over end before its tailgate touched down and the pickup fell onto its passenger side.

The teen was properly wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash, and the pickup was equipped with a front airbag. Rob Ammons claimed in the lawsuit that defects in the Ram’s seat belt and airbag directly caused the young man’s paralyzing injuries. Specifically, the Ram’s front airbag failed to deploy and the seat belt webbing was late to lock. These failures resulted in unwanted occupant movement, causing forces produced in the crash to crush a thoracic vertebra and damage to the teen’s spinal cord. Treatment of the paralyzing injuries resulted in charges of almost $700,000.00. The cost for future medical treatment was estimated by a Life Care Planner to fall between $1,746,488 and $2,312,846.

Rob Ammons is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, in addition to being Board Certified in Civil Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy.

The Ammons Law Firm has a nationwide personal injury practice focusing on tire defects, truck accidents, rollovers, consumer protection and product liability, catastrophic injury, wrongful death, post-collision fires, seat belt defects, airbag defects, and plant explosions.