{"id":9750,"date":"2026-01-28T03:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defective-products-verdict-in-favor-of-plaintiff-in-the-amount-of-us25910000\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T03:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:14:06","slug":"defective-products-verdict-in-favor-of-plaintiff-in-the-amount-of-us25910000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/defective-products-verdict-in-favor-of-plaintiff-in-the-amount-of-us25910000\/","title":{"rendered":"Defective Products &#8211; Verdict in favor of Plaintiff in the amount of US$25,910,000"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<table cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tr>\n<td><b>Case Name<\/b>:<\/td>\n<td>Salliotte v. Ford Motor Co. and the First Baptist Church<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Case Number<\/b>:<\/td>\n<td>2014-CA-001436<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Verdict Date<\/b>:<\/td>\n<td>2018-03-15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Outcome Type<\/b>:\u00a0<\/td>\n<td>Jury Verdict<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Court<\/b>:<\/td>\n<td>6th Judicial Circuit, Pasco County, FL<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><b>Incident Date<\/b>:<\/td>\n<td>2014-02-21<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>\n<b>Plaintiff&#8217;s Complaint<\/b>:<br \/>\nWrongful death arising out of a 15 passenger E350 Van rollover.  The crash happened on February 21, 2014, just outside of Lake City, Florida.  The van was owned by The First Baptist Church of New Port Richey.  The Church was using the van to transport members of its congregation from New Port Richey to a retreat in Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>The rollover was immediately preceded by a catastrophic tread separation suffered by the left rear tire.  The tire that failed had been previously recalled.<\/p>\n<p><b>Injury, Damage, or Loss<\/b>:<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nWrongful Death.  Mrs. Salliotte left behind a husband and four children.<\/p>\n<p><b>Defendant&#8217;s Wrongdoing<\/b>:<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe Plaintiff presented evidence and argument that the van&#8217;s seatbelts were defectively designed because they could fall between or below the seats, making them inaccessible to a seated passenger.  The Plaintiff also presented evidence and argument that the van was defectively designed from a handling standpoint because it had a rear-wheel bustleback, rather than a dually design.&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nAdditionally, the Plaintiff presented evidence and argument that the Church failed to properly maintain the seatbelts, including by failing to look for and pull the seatbelts up on top of the seats to ensure they were accessible to passengers.&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nThe Jury found that the E350 Van was placed on the market with defective seatbelts and with a defective rear-wheel bustleback design.  The Jury also found that the Church was negligent.<\/p>\n<p><b>Plaintiff&#8217;s Attorneys<\/b>:<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nRich Newsome and Frank Melton of Newsome Melton, PA (Orlando, FL)&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\nChristine Spagnoli of Greene Broilet &amp; Wheeler, LLP (Los Angeles, CA)<\/p>\n<p><b>Defendant&#8217;s Attorneys<\/b>:<\/p>\n<p><b>Judge\/Arbitrator\/Mediator<\/b>:<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nJudge Byrd<\/p>\n<h2>Free Legal Help<\/h2>\n<p>If you or a loved one has suffered similar damages, please fill in the form at right and your complaint will be sent to a lawyer who may evaluate your claim at no cost or obligation.<time itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"2019-03-19T00:00Z\"\/><br \/><i>Published on Mar-19-19<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Case Name: Salliotte v. Ford Motor Co. and the First Baptist Church Case Number: 2014-CA-001436 Verdict Date: 2018-03-15 Outcome Type:\u00a0 Jury Verdict Court: 6th Judicial Circuit, Pasco County, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7304,2354,468,814,2985,7405,395],"class_list":["post-9750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-amount","tag-defective","tag-favor","tag-plaintiff","tag-products","tag-us25910000","tag-verdict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}