Judge Shawn Bratton, Gwinnett County State Court (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

Ford Motor Co. has won a chance to appeal Gwinnett County State Court Judge Shawn Bratton's sanctions in a contentious roof crush case that ended in a mistrial.

The Georgia Court of Appeals issued a one-sentence order Monday saying the other side's emergency motion to dismiss Ford's notice of appeal is denied.

Lawyers on both sides declined to comment beyond the record. The briefs show Ford's team describing Bratton's sanctions as civil capital punishment and equating them with a contempt charge, which is appealable. Opposing counsel has called that strategy “nonsense” and a delaying tactic, asserting that Ford should not be allowed to appeal until the case can be tried again and a verdict reached.

The product liability wrongful death lawsuit was filed by the family of South Georgia farmers Melvin and Voncile Hill, who died in a rollover crash in their F-250 Super Duty pickup truck. The company is appealing Bratton's imposition of sanctions against Ford for what the judge called repeated violations of his orders. Bratton declared a mistrial in April after Ford's lead counsel took an expert witness into cause-of-death testimony that the judge had already ruled out. As punishment, Bratton precluded the company's defense against charges that it knowingly made a roof that was dangerously weak and deadly in a foreseeable rollover crash.

Ford said in a notice of appeal that Bratton's sanction is “in substance, intention, and effect, an order holding defendant in contempt of the court and is therefore directly appealable” under Georgia law.

“The imposition of impermissible death-penalty contempt sanctions, violating basic due process rights by adjudicating a controversy not based on the merits, constitutes an exceptional case justifying interlocutory review of the order, particularly in light of the trial court's blanket refusal to certify that or any order for immediate review—a practice consistently and without exception followed with each and every certificate of immediate review requested by Ford,” the company said in its notice of appeal.

Ford further reasoned that, if the sanctions order can be appealed, then so can “all prior orders and rulings that may affect the proceedings below.” Thus the company announced in the notice that it is also appealing 14 other orders by Bratton, saying they “and many others” are “reviewable in the same manner as a final order.”

Ford's issues with the judge include Bratton preventing the company from apportioning fault to the driver, partly because he tested positive for “numerous prescription drugs with significant side effects.” Ford objected to being prevented from making an issue of seatbelt use: Although witnesses said the Hills were wearing their seatbelts, Ford suggested they may not have had the shoulder portion of their belts in proper position. Ford also took issue with Bratton's denial of its request for recusal based on alleged bias in favor of the Hills.

Ford asked the clerk to “omit nothing from the record on appeal” and designate that all transcripts, pleadings, papers, exhibits, depositions and other materials before and during the three-week trial be sent as part of the record.

The Georgia Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over the appeal, Ford asserted, “because this case does not involve matters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Georgia.” Ford's appellate attorneys are William Withrow Jr., Pete Robinson and James Manley at Troutman Sanders. They replaced Dentons partner Randy Evans after Evans left the firm to become a U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.

Ford's lead trial counsel is D. Alan Thomas of Huie Fernambucq & Stewart in Birmingham, Alabama, working with Paul Malek of the same firm. The team includes Michael Eady of Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons of Austin, Texas; and Atlanta lawyers Michael Boorman and Philip Henderson of Huff, Powell & Bailey.

Counsel for Kim and Adam Hill, who brought the suit on behalf of their deceased parents, filed a request for special setting of a new trial date and opposition to what they claim are Ford's attempts to delay it.

The Hills' lead counsel is Jim Butler of Butler Wooten & Peak of Columbus and Atlanta. Butler's legal team includes Gerald Davidson Jr. of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker in Lawrenceville; Brandon Peak, David Rohwedder, Christopher McDaniel and Ramsey Prather of Butler Wooten; and Michael Gray of Walker, Hulbert, Gray & Moore in Perry. The Butler team has also added appellate lawyers Michael Terry and Frank Lowrey IV of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore.

The Hill team said in its filing that Ford's latest action “makes it even more clear that Ford intends to try to delay retrial as much as possible by attempted unauthorized appeals.”

The Butler team said the Hills “have a right to get a trial and a verdict” and cited another case the firm tried, Gibson v. Ford, in which the firm claims the company's lawyers delayed the trial for five years with preverdict appeals. That case finally ended in 2005 with a $13 million verdict. “Plaintiffs are opposed to piecemeal appellate review and should not be punished by further delay as a result of Ford's and Ford's lawyers' reprehensible behavior,” the Hill lawyers said in a brief. They also quoted Bratton's July 19 sanctions order: “Ford's ability to appeal the court's rulings with which it took exception was within arm's length. Upon verdict, likely days away, all rulings would have been directly appealable.”