Last week, the third law suit against Ford Motor Co. for the wrongful death of 22-year old Brian Cole was settled.  Cole, a New York Mets AA player, was driving his Ford Explorer in 2001 when his vehicle rolled off of State Highway 8 in Florida.  Cole was ejected from his vehicle and died from the injuries he incurred in the accident.

The settlement calls for Ford to pay $131 million to Cole’s family, including $1.5 million to Cole’s cousin who was riding in the passenger seat of the Explorer at the time of the accident, and was injured.  The previous two trials resulted in hung juries, however 11 out of 12 jurors in this suit agreed that Ford was at fault.

Brian’s family argued that “the Explorer is defective and unreasonably dangerous for the uses for which it was marketed because the vehicle has an unreasonable tendency to roll when used as Ford marketed it to be used [as a station wagon replacement].”  Ford admitted no wrongdoing or defect related to the car accident.