The massive punitive award may well be thrown out or trimmed back. The jury awarded an additional $3.5 million in compensatory damages to Grimshaw and to Gray's relatives, for a total of $128.5 million.

(He has undergone some 60 operations to alleviate the damage.) The Pinto's driver, 52-year-old Lily Gray, the only other person in the car, died of her burns. The award was so big that it even stunned attorneys for the plaintiff who won it: Richard Grimshaw, now 19 years old who was burned over 90% of his body and lost his nose, left ear and much of his left hand in the flames. Ford calls the verdict 'so unreasonable and unwarranted that it won't be upheld' and plans to ask the judge to overturn it.

'We came up with this high amount so that Ford wouldn't design cars this way again,' says foreman Quinn, who describes the Pinto as 'a lousy and unsafe product.' The jury, he says, wanted a punishment severe enough to sting the big auto maker. The verdict, reached in only a day and a half of jury deliberations after a six-month trial, is the largest punitive award ever made by a jury in a personat-injury case, according to lawyers who specialize in the field. The car, stalled on a freeway, was struck in the rear by another car six years ago. Last week, jury foreman Quinn read in state Superior Court here a verdict assessing $125 million in punitive damages against Ford in a case involving the rupour and explosion of the fuel tank on a 1975 Pinto. All Rights Reserved February 15, 1978Īndrew Quinn, a retired policeman, had to give up golf temporarily for jury duty. Reprinted permission of The Wall Street Journal Copyright (c) 1978 Dow Jones & Co.

Ford pinto case