Anne Bucher  |  July 1, 2013

Category: Consumer News

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ford class action lawsuitOn June 12, a new sudden acceleration class action lawsuit against Ford Motor Company was filed in a West Virginia federal court.

The class action lawsuit alleges that Ford automobiles were subject to sudden acceleration and lacked safety mechanisms to prevent crashes. This lawsuit follows a similar suit that was filed on March 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

At issue in these class action lawsuits are Ford vehicles that were manufactured between 2002 and 2010. These vehicles were equipped with electronic throttle control, but did not have adequate safeguards to prevent incidents of sudden unintended acceleration.

According to the class action lawsuit: “[T]he Ford vehicles share a common design defect in that they lack adequate fail-safe systems, including a reliable Brake Over Accelerator system that would allow a driver to mitigate sudden unintended acceleration by depressing the brake.”

Putative members of the class action lawsuit include: “Each person who has owned or leased a Ford vehicle vulnerable to sudden unintended acceleration during the time period relevant to this action paid more for the Ford vehicle than they would have paid, or would not have purchased or leased the Ford vehicle altogether, because of the defective nature of the Ford vehicles resulting from the absence of a fail-safe such as a BOA to prevent sudden unintended acceleration events in each of them.”

There are currently 15 plaintiffs from 14 states named in the Ford acceleration class action lawsuit. The lead plaintiff is Pamela D. Smith, who purchased a Ford F-150 pickup truck. She claims that she was informed by advertisements about the truck’s safety and reliability when she made the decision to purchase the F-150. Had she known about the potential for unintended acceleration and the lack of safeguards to prevent the problem, she would not have purchased the F-150, she claims.

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit accuse Ford of concealing information about the risk of unintended acceleration that was associated with its vehicles. Lincoln and Mercury vehicles from the same time period are also included in the complaint.

This class action lawsuit is the second sudden acceleration lawsuit to be filed against Ford in recent months. On March 28, a similar class action lawsuit was filed in the West Virginia federal court (Belville v. Ford Motor Co.). Plaintiffs from both suits are seeking to have the two cases consolidated because both class action lawsuits make the same allegations against Ford. The plaintiffs claim that consolidating the actions will promote efficiency and reduce the burden on the plaintiffs and witnesses involved in the lawsuit. Many of the same attorneys are already combining efforts in these class action lawsuits.

Ford has not yet filed an answer to the class action lawsuit that was filed in March.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs include Niall A. Paul of Spillman Thomas & Battle; Guy Bucci, Timothy Bailey and Lee Javins of Bucci Bailey & Javins; Edgar F. Heiskell III and others.

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51 thoughts onNew Ford Unintended Acceleration Class Action Lawsuit Filed

  1. Kim Hawk says:

    I bought a 2022 Ford Edge SEL a week ago, and have already experienced unexpected acceleration while driving with and without the cruise control set. It is quite startling when you remove your foot from the gas pedal when approaching another vehicle and have your car either not slow down, or actually accelerate. When I have set the cruise control and come to a down grade, instead of maintaining the set speed as all my other vehicles have done, it speeds up to over 15 mph over the set speed. This is maddening, as I had taken my 2018 ford into their shop that day for an all of a sudden loss in oil pressure, only to be told that ford was only to be told that there were metal shavings in my oil due to an oil pump issue that ford was aware of, but because I was out of warranty refused to fix it unless i paid out of pocket. The fix was a new engine. After 10 hrs stuck at the dealership because I was 80 miles from home when it broke down, I finally agreed to trade it in and purchase another vehicle so I could get home. They insisted that the only vehicle they could sell me was a brand new Ford Edge due to the negative equity in my ecosport. I finally got out of there at 11.5 hours with a new car and a new $900/month car payment to go with it only to have it start to have the acceleration issues after I hit about 1000 miles.

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