– Alleged carbon monoxide poisoning from the Ford Explorer Police Interceptor was the focus of a lawsuit filed in 2022 by Texas police officer Jeremy Bellamy.
Bellamy was working for the Universal City Police Department in March 2021 when a passerby reportedly found him slumped in the parked 2019 police Explorer.
He was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with carbon monoxide poisoning and pneumonia, but the carbon monoxide is believed to have come from a defective Ford Explorer Police Interceptor.
Although the lawsuit stated that a passerby found him unconscious, the police report said the passerby knocked on the window of the Explorer, causing Bellamy to roll down the window. According to the report, Bellamy told the passerby that he was fine.
Ford argued at trial that Bellamy had been sleeping because of high blood pressure, sleep apnea and an addiction to painkillers.
Ford’s carbon monoxide lawsuit went to trial, where the jury took just three hours to reach a verdict.
Bellamy wanted the jury to award him an award of up to $136 million, but he received nothing when the jury found in Ford’s favor.
A motion was filed for a new trial, but Mr. Bellamy died less than a week after the jury’s verdict. The medical examiner concluded that Mr. Bellamy died of high blood pressure and heart disease.
The motion for a new trial alleged that “the inadvertent presentation of an illustrative piece of evidence to the jury created a rebuttable presumption of prejudice to warrant a new trial.”
While the lawsuit continued by his estate, the judge denied the request for a new trial. However, his estate has now appealed the denial for a new trial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Bellamy’s lawsuit was filed at a time when lawsuits were flying everywhere from consumers and police officers, with all the lawsuits claiming that Ford’s vehicles caused carbon monoxide poisoning.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration took six years to investigate the allegations and determined that the Explorers did not cause elevated carbon monoxide levels in the cabins.
The carbon monoxide lawsuit against the Bellamy Ford Explorer Police Interceptor has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (San Antonio Division): Jeremy Bellamy v. Ford Motor Company.
Legal issues over carbon monoxide at Ford
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