Oakland County Jury Awards $32.7 Million to Child Hurt When Prototype Mustang Hit Test-Track Spectators
After trial: The verdict was returned September 11, 2026. We found no post-trial motion or appeal as of early October 2026, and we could not confirm whether Continental has paid.
Won by Marko Law Firm.
On September 11, 2026, an Oakland County jury awarded about $32.7 million to a child who suffered a traumatic brain injury and back and leg injuries when a prototype Ford Mustang crashed into spectators at a Continental Automotive Systems test track in Auburn Hills in 2023. Continental admitted liability, so the trial decided damages only. It was the third trial from the same crash, and the company made no settlement offer in any of them.
What happened
In July 2023, a group of children on a STEM summer-camp field trip visited a vehicle test track operated by Continental Automotive Systems Inc. in Auburn Hills, Michigan. During a demonstration, a Ford Mustang Dark Horse prototype driven by a Continental test driver lost control and crashed into spectators standing behind a track rail. Two children were seriously hurt. The father of one of them saw the crash happen.
The child at the center of this case suffered a traumatic brain injury and injuries to the back and legs. The family sued Continental in Oakland County Circuit Court in 2024. The case was assigned No. 2024-209675-NO and tried before Judge David Cohen in Pontiac.
Continental admitted liability before the trial began, which left the jury with a single question: what the child's injuries were worth. Courtroom View Network, which recorded the proceeding, reported that the company never made a settlement offer. In opening statements, plaintiff's lead trial lawyer Jonathan Marko of Marko Law PLLC told jurors about the long-term cognitive and emotional effects of the brain injury. Defense counsel Jonathan Ebner of Clyde & Co. said Continental accepted responsibility for the crash, but accused the plaintiff's side of overreaching and argued the damages claim did not match the actual injuries. John Eads of Marko Law and Scott Goodwin of Scott Goodwin Law also appeared for the plaintiff.
The jury returned its verdict on September 11, 2026, awarding roughly $32.7 million. The trial was the third consecutive damages-only trial to come out of the same crash, each brought by a different member of the injured group, and each tried without a settlement offer from Continental. The first two trials, in July and August, covered the other injured child and that child's father, who brought a bystander claim, and each produced its own separate award.
In a ruling during the test track litigation, the judge also sanctioned Continental for misrepresenting its insurance limits to the plaintiffs. Marko told Courtroom View Network that defendants hiding insurance has been all too common in Michigan.
We found no reported post-trial motion or appeal in this case as of early October 2026, and no public record of payment.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Courtroom View Network, 'Jury Awards $32.7M In Third Consecutive Zero-Offer Test Track Crash Trial', September 2026·Archived copy
- 2.Courtroom View Network, '$100M+ Trial Opens Over Bystander Crash At Racing Test Track', August 2026·Archived copy
- 3.WDIV ClickOnDetroit, 'How an Auburn Hills test track crash became a nearly $900 million jury award', Sept. 27, 2026·Archived copy
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