Georgia jury awards $1.7 billion in Ford F-250 truck crash

A Georgia jury has returned a $1.7 billion verdict against Ford Motor Co. involving a pickup truck crash that claimed the lives of a Georgia couple, their lawyers confirmed.

Ford Motor Co. plans to appeal the verdict, a company representative said Sunday.

Jurors in Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta, returned the verdict late last week in the years-long civil case involving what the plaintiffs' lawyers called dangerously defective roofs on Ford pickup trucks, lawyer James Butler Jr. said Sunday.