Product-Defect Presumption Lives On: Florida Appeals Court Upholds $103M vs. Ford
A Florida appeals court has upheld a $103 million jury award against Ford Motor Co. after a modified Ford Mustang exploded in 2017, leaving the owner with severe burns over much of his body and the loss of his hands. The appeal was centered on the scope of a Florida legal doctrine that determines when product-defect lawsuits should be heard by a jury. It’s a doctrine that many manufacturers and insurers have long objected to.
The 5th District Court of Appeal did not retry the case but focused on what the judges called Ford’s lawyers’ insufficient and misleading arguments in their appeal motion.
“…An appellant cannot prevail on appeal with mere conclusions and rhetoric, or by glossing over the record and relevant legal questions. When a party ‘spins’ the record and issues in the case, it does so at its own peril,” 5DCA Judge Eric Eisnaugle wrote in the sharply worded opinion, handed down Friday.
The victim in the case was Jacksonville lawyer-turned-entrepreneur and investment manager Robert Hetsler, who was once licensed as a mediator in insurance disputes. The suit brought by Hetsler eventually involved more than 40,000 pages of documents. Questions about the strange circumstances arose from the start.
Hetsler in 2017 had recently purchased the modified 2016 Mustang, which was supercharged by Roush Performance Co. and sold at a Ford dealership. Hetsler said he was sleeping in the car in a parking lot at 3 a.m. one night in 2017, with the engine idling, when it exploded. Unable to remember much about the blast, he later said he was driving it when the car blew up.
Experts were never able to determine a cause, although one theory suggested that leaking brake fluid may have ignited.
Ford asked the court to set aside or reduce the jury’s 2024 verdict, arguing that the jury should not have been instructed to consider the long-established legal doctrine known as the Cassisi inference, which resulted from a 1981 Florida appeals court decision, Cassisi vs. Maytag. The Cassisi inference holds that, in most cases, if a product malfunctions under normal use and causes injury, a jury can presume that the product was defective at the time it was sold.
Ford Motor Co. argued that no evidence showed that a product defect caused the explosion. The automaker’s attorneys at one point also suggested that Hetsler was smoking at the time, which may have sparked a fire.
Ford “does not believe that the verdict in this case is reflective of the facts and the law as presented in court. Ford stands by the safety and quality of its vehicles,” the company said in a statement reported by Jacksonville news outlets in 2024.
The 5th District appeals court in 2025 affirmed the jury’s $103 million verdict, but without providing a written opinion. Hoping to appeal further to the Florida Supreme Court and correct what they said was a trend toward overly broad interpretations of the Cassisi inference through the years, Ford’s attorneys asked the 5DCA court to write out their thoughts.
“According to Ford, Florida’s appellate courts have ‘stretched the doctrine far beyond’ what is fair,” the appeals court wrote.
Ford had some big legal names on its side, including the Florida Justice Reform Institute’s William Large, who helped write a friend-of-the-court brief on Ford’s behalf.
But in the end, Ford’s own lawyers failed to present a compelling, complete or well-supported argument, the appellate judges said.
“In short, Ford has not offered us any standard with which to measure the limits of Cassisi’s application in this case,” the opinion reads. “If the proper formula requires consideration of competing interests without a foundation in custom and long usage, Ford has not acknowledged any interests other than its own. And even then, it does so largely in conclusory fashion.”
The judges further chastised Ford’s appeal brief. In their argument, Ford’s attorneys, with the Bowman and Brooke law firm and the Hogan Lovells firm, contended that Hetsler’s expert had testified that the Roush Performance modifications rerouted components through the brake system, perhaps causing a flammable fluid leak.
But the appellate judges took issue with that.
“Instead, the cited testimony indicates Roush installed components near the braking system—not through it,” the opinion notes. “In fact, the experts, including Ford’s, testified that Roush did not modify any of the relevant parts of the braking system and that Roush would not have caused a brake fluid leak. Ford does not disclose this testimony in its initial brief.”
Ford also implied that the Cassisi doctrine should apply only to self-operating products, such as washers or dryers. But Florida courts for years have cited the Cassisi decision in vehicle suits, including in a 1995 case involving Allstate Insurance.
“In conclusion, we do not decide whether the trial court erred when it applied the Cassisi inference because, as we have explained, Ford’s briefing is insufficient to demonstrate reversible error,” the appeals court wrote.
It’s likely Ford will now ask the state Supreme Court for further review. Ford Motor Co. is self-insured up to a point, then purchases excess and umbrella liability coverage from a number of insurers, according to court cases cited by Justia Law legal website. Hetsler settled a lawsuit against Roush and with the car dealer in 2022.
In a side note to the exploding Mustang suit, 28 people who had invested millions of dollars with Hetsler accused him of embezzling the money or running a Ponzi scheme. Hetsler pointed out that he was in a coma for weeks after the blast and was unable to tend to his investors.
“I feel horrible that it happened,” Hetsler, 44 at the time, told the Florida Times Union newspaper in 2019.
That case settled in 2023. After a court-appointed liquidator sold much of Hetsler’s assets, some $5 million dollars or about 80% of the initial investments were returned to the investors, the newspaper reported.
Photo: A Ford Mustang, similar to Hetsler’s supercharged model. (DepositPhotos stock images)