— Another Ford truck roof lawsuit has been filed after a 29-year-old California man died in a 2008 Ford F-350 Super Duty Lariat rollover crash.
Several Ford truck roof collapse lawsuits have been filed after a jury awarded a family $1.7 billion when a Ford truck rolled over and the roof collapsed.
This latest Ford Super Duty collapsed roof lawsuit was filed by Deborah Ann King, mother of Anthony Contreras who was killed when his Ford F-350 rolled over on State Route 17 in Los Gatos, Santa Clara County, California.
The crash occurred on the afternoon of May 16, 2023, as Anthony Contreras was trying to pass a semi-tractor trailer and lost control of his Ford F-350. The lawsuit says the truck rolled over onto its roof, and Mr. Contreras died one day later.
According to the wrongful death lawsuit, the Ford truck "lacked sufficient structural integrity in the roof structure to withstand and protect an occupant during a reasonably foreseeable roll-over accidents."
Though the 2008 truck met or exceeded all federal safety standards, the roof collapse lawsuit alleges the F-350 didn't have "adequate passive restraint systems, including side roll over activated curtain head and torso protection airbags; and failing to have adequate seat belt systems, rendering the vehicle uncrashworthy."
The truck was allegedly dangerous, and the lawsuit says the 2008 Ford F-350 had several defects.
- The "A" and "C" pillars, windshield headers and roof rails were defective.
- The truck was manufactured without a "B" pillar.
- The 2008 Ford truck had "insufficient directional and lateral stability so as to keep the vehicle upright during cornering and handling by an ordinary driver," leaving the truck "generally not crashworthy."
According to the truck roof lawsuit, the Ford F-350:
"[H]ad defective and unsafe restraint systems, including but not limited to seat buckles, seat belts, shoulder belts and retractors, with defects including but not limited to false latching, inertial unlatching, inadvertent unlatching, retractor failure, and a system which permits too much vertical excursion of the occupant, which Defendants and each of them knew and were aware would fail to properly restrain an occupant in the SUBJECT VEHICLE in the event of a rollover accident, and which, in this case, failed to properly restrain the Plaintiff."
In addition, the roof collapse lawsuit says Ford never provided advanced warnings about the alleged defects.
The Ford truck roof collapse lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara: Deborah King v. Ford Motor Company, et al.
The plaintiff is represented by Bisnar Chase LLP.
