A San Diego jury awarded three young sons $14.4 million Tuesday in a wrongful-death lawsuit for an automobile accident that killed their parents.
On July 31, 2006, Casey Barber was driving with his wife Melanie on Highway 98 near Page, Ariz., when their Ford E350 Sportsmobile van lost control and rolled over. Right-rear tire tread separation was determined as the cause of the deadly accident.
Plantiffs’ attorney Adam Shea accused the defendant Mossy Ford of improperly fixing the tire in Aug. 2005 when the tire should have been pulled from use.
According to a published obituary, the sons were ages 3, 5 and 8 at the time of their parents' deaths
The two sides reached a post-verdict settlement that, including a pre-verdict settlement with other defendants, will award the sons $19 million total, the plantiffs’ attorney said.
As part of the post-verdict settlement, Mossy Ford agreed to immediately follow industry guidelines for tire repair and implement a technician training program to improve consumer safety, according to a Businesswire release.
"Our goal was more than just obtaining a monetary recovery," plantiffs' counsel Robert Buccola said in the release. "Here, we were able to evoke real change and get the word out to other tire repair facilities of the importance of following tire repair rules to a tee.”
