Court tosses $43M award against Ford in crash case

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out an Illlinois jury's $43 million award against Ford Motor Co. in a product-liability lawsuit linked to a fiery 2003 crash that killed a Missouri man and disfigured his wife.

The high court, in a Sept. 22 ruling made public Wednesday, among other things found that the lawsuit on Dora and John Jablonski's behalf did not give sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude Ford negligently "breached its duty of reasonable care" in designing the Lincoln Town Car involved in the wreck.

Justices also found that Illinois law does not require a company to warn of defects undetected before the product left the manufacturer.

A jury in southwestern Illinois' Madison County sided with the Jablonski family of Florissant, Mo., in 2005, faulting Ford in the design of the Jablonski's 1993 Lincoln Town Car that burst into flames in July 2003 when it was struck from behind while stopped in a freeway's construction zone near Granite City, Ill.