$1.7 Billion Roof Crush Verdict Against Ford, Vacated on Appeal, Then Settled

On April 3, 2014, Melvin and Voncile Hill were driving their 2002 Ford F-250 Super Duty pickup in rural Sumter County, Georgia, when a front tire failed and the truck rolled over. The roof crushed down into the cab. Melvin, 74, and Voncile, 62, died of their injuries. Their sons sued Ford Motor Company in Gwinnett County State Court, alleging the roof on the Super Duty line was too weak to protect occupants in a rollover.

The case was tried twice. The first trial, in 2018, ended in a mistrial after the judge found Ford's side had violated pretrial evidentiary orders. As a sanction, the court barred Ford from contesting liability at the retrial, so the second jury decided the case with the defect question already resolved against the automaker.

At the August 2022 retrial, the plaintiffs' team, led by James E. Butler Jr. of Butler Prather LLP with Daniel Philyaw of the firm and co-counsel Gerald Davidson Jr. of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker and Michael B. Terry of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, presented evidence of nearly 80 other rollover wrecks in which Super Duty roofs crushed or killed occupants. On August 19, 2022, the jury awarded about $24 million in compensatory damages for the Hills' deaths and their pain and suffering, then added $1.7 billion in punitive damages. It was the largest verdict ever returned in Georgia.

The verdict did not stand. On November 1, 2024, the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and ordered a new trial. The court held that Georgia law did not authorize the trial judge to punish violations of orders in limine by stripping Ford of its liability defenses, reasoning that lesser sanctions were available. The majority also ruled that Ford should have been allowed to offer evidence that the Hills wore their seatbelts improperly, drawing a distinction between improper use and non-use under Georgia's seatbelt statute, and that two crash test studies were excluded under the wrong legal standard. In August 2025 the Georgia Supreme Court declined to review the decision, clearing the way for a third trial.

That trial never happened. In September 2025, Ford settled the Hill case on confidential terms. It resolved the case alongside a second Butler Prather roof crush case against Ford, brought over the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills in a 2022 rollover of a 2015 F-250, in which a Columbus jury had returned a $2.5 billion punitive verdict in February 2025. Court filings do not disclose what Ford paid in either case.

The litigation had run for more than a decade by the time it closed. Along the way, Ford publicly called the punitive award outrageous and pressed Georgia lawmakers to limit jury awards. Butler declined to comment when the settlements were reported. The filings ending both lawsuits were entered on September 12, 2025.