Georgia Supreme Court Considers Appeal in Exploding Gas Tank Case

By Robin Chang

Published on September 17, 2007

Anne Marie Gibson was killed in a fiery wreck in 1999 while driving a 1985 Mercury Marquis. Gibson’s car was rear-ended by a pickup truck driven by William Burns of Athens, Georgia, traveling at a speed of about 50 mph. Gibson was struck while waiting to turn off of U.S. Highway 129 onto a gravel road leading to her home. The trailer hitch attached to the back of her vehicle punctured the car’s gas tank and caused the fatal explosion.

In 2005, a Clarke County State Court jury found Ford Motor Co. and the Draw-Tite trailer-hitch maker liable for the woman’s death and awarded her widower and three children a sum of $13 million. The jury ruled that the location of the sedan’s gas tank, the trailer hitch, and a weak seat back caused the explosion.

Attorneys for Ford Motor Co. claimed in court this week that the judge in the original case, State Court Justice Kent Lawrence, acted unfairly by instructing the jury to assume that the carmaker sold its vehicle with intentional disregard for consumer safety. Lawrence delivered these instructions to the jury after Ford Motor Co. refused a court order to give the Gibson family’s lawyers access to records of 42 test crashes that the company used to prepare its defense.

Ford argues that the crash test results are protected by attorney-client privilege because they are attorney work product materials. Draw-Tite lawyers claim that their company has been unfairly lumped in with Ford Motor Co. in this case.

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