Ford Pays After F-150 Roof Collapse Kills Driver

Rob Ammons secured compensation for the mother of a 19-year-old man who was killed when the roof of the 2006 Ford F-150 he was driving collapsed over him in a rollover crash.

In the lawsuit, Ammons alleged that the F-150 was designed and manufactured by Ford (1) with a weak roof structure that cannot withstand the pickup’s weight in rollover crashes and (2) without a roll-activated safety canopy to offer injury prevention benefits. According to Ammons, fatal injuries were inflicted when excessive crushing of the roof over the driver’s seat and severe intrusion into the pickup’s safety cell nearly obliterated the young man’s survival space.

Ammons contended that Ford vehicles once had strong roofs and that they still could be if they were to include some or all of a number of safer alternative designs, including increased metal gauge and component size, Boron steel, foam fillers, internally reinforced components, hole elimination and improved component integration. Equipping the pickup with roll-activated side curtain airbags would offer occupants crucial protection from head injuries, even in the event of a collapsing roof. Ford’s own engineers recommended the safety feature be included in its 2001 and later model year light trucks, but the recommendations were not heeded with respect to the 2006 F-150.

“Ford has a Built Tough slogan, yet chose to sell profitable F-series pickups with profoundly weak roofs to unsuspecting consumers. Its choice had devastating consequences when it took the life of my client’s son who had recently graduated high school with honors and had a bright future and long life ahead of him.”

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.