Opening statements today in multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Ford Motor Co.

YOUNGSTOWN — Austintown Patrolman Ross J. Linert was severely burned because of a defective fuel tank and an undesirable tank location behind the rear axle of the 2005 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor cruiser he was driving, Linert’s lawyer told the jury in opening statements today in a civil lawsuit trial.

“The fuel tank was defective in that it deviated from Ford’s own manufacturing specifications,” said Linert’s lawyer, Brad Lakin. “There was a design defect in the tank location.”

Linert and his wife, Brenda, filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Ford Motor Co. The trial is expected to last two to three weeks before visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The suit stemmed from a 116 mph rear-end crash caused by a drunken driver on Nov. 11, 2007, at Meridian Road and Interstate 680.

Ford’s lawyer, James Feeney, told the jurors there was nothing inherently wrong with the tank location in Linert’s cruiser. “Every tank is located in a crush zone,” he said, referring to the existence of both side and rear crush zones affecting fuel tanks. “There is no perfect tank location.”

“Ford has gone the extra mile,” Feeney said, adding that that particular Crown Victoria model was the only vehicle made between 1998 and 2005 that passed a 75 mph rear-crash test.

“Every tank, including Trooper Linert’s was pressured-tested,” at the manufacturing plant in Dearborn, Mich., and those that didn’t pass were rejected, Feeney said.

For the complete story, read Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com