Halie Bush, the mother of a 3-year-old who was seriously injured and died due to an accident in the family’s driveway, filed a complaint against Ford Motor Co. last month in the Eastern District of Texas, which she alleged that a faulty vehicle design is to blame for her young toddler’s death.
According to the details in the complaint, K.S., Bush’s 3-year-old son, was killed back on Nov. 2, 2013, when the little boy’s father accidentally backed over him with his Ford F-150 pickup truck in the driveway of their home in Carthage, Texas, even though he used the truck’s backup safety system to make sure he would be safe. Bush claims the accident happened because the vehicle’s design was defective; its “rearview visibility system was inadequate to protect against backover crashes involving children…” and that such a design flaw makes the F-150 “unreasonably dangerous and defective.”
The complaint also points out that there were alternate designs available to Ford at the time the F-150 in question was manufactured that would’ve made the vehicle far safer than it was. Among other designs available to Ford included “a rearview video system with an in-vehicle visual display,” which Bush alleges would have “increased rear view visibility, particularly in regards to children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and other pedestrians located directly behind the subject vehicle…” and which would have “significantly reduced the risk of backover crashes…”
In the complaint, Bush accused Ford Motor Company of strict liability, negligence, gross negligence and wrongful death because the car maker allegedly failed in its duty to design a vehicle with sufficient rear view visibility. She is asking for recovery for pain and mental anguish, medical expenses and funeral and burial expenses.
Bush is being represented by several attorneys, including John C. Ramsey and Justin A. Hill of Hill Law Firm. One reason for this is because the Automotive Defects Lawyer at Hill Law Firm have years of experience handling these types of automotive defect cases, and the knowledge they’ve gained from that experience is invaluable when it comes to dealing with the company the size of Ford Motor Co.