Family and Estate of Jennifer Garcia v. Ford Motor Company

The family and estate of Jennifer Garcia sued Ford Motor Company on a products liability theory for the wrongful death of the 16-year-old who was killed in a March 2004 accident. They claimed that the 1993 Ford F-150 in which she was a passenger was defective and unreasonably dangerous. The truck in which she was a passenger with her parents hit another vehicle that pulled on the road from a fruit stand. They claimed that the roof of the truck was not sufficiently strong to withstand the reasonably anticipated forces incurred during a roll over accident and was as a result defectively designed.

Ford claimed that the young woman was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident which the plaintiffs denied. Ford also claimed that the pickup manufactured by it was not defective and met all government safety standards.