Cengage Advantage Books: Fundamentals of Business Law Today 10th Edition by Roger LeRoy Miller

Exercise 18

Product Misuse. Five-year-old Cheyenne Stark was riding in the backseat of her parents' Ford Taurus. Cheyenne was not sitting in a booster seat. Instead, she was using a seatbelt designed by Ford, but was wearing the shoulder belt behind her back. The car was involved in a collision. As a result, Cheyenne suffered a spinal cord injury and was paralyzed from the waist down. The family filed a suit against Ford Motor Co., alleging that the seatbelt was defectively designed. Could Ford successfully claim that Cheyenne had misused the seatbelt? Why or why not? [ Stark v. Ford Motor Co., 693 S.E.2d 253 (N.C.App. 2010)] (See Product Liability.)