Ford sued over alleged Econoline van defects

A woman whose son died in a highway crash in Manitoba has filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Co., claiming the type of van he was in has design defects that make it susceptible to rollovers.

In a statement of claim, Stella Benedetti Gurr of Nanaimo, B.C., says her 26-year-old son, Michael, was killed when a 1994 Ford E-series van rolled over on the Trans-Canada Highway on Sept. 25, 2008.

Four other men were injured when the van flipped in the median ditch east of Brandon. One of the other passengers was thrown from the vehicle.

The class-action suit claims this model of extended, 15-passenger vehicle — also known as the Econoline — is difficult to handle and does not meet safety standards.

The court action, filed last week in Winnipeg, also alleges Ford knew this type of vehicle was "unreasonably dangerous" and "negligently designed," but it continued selling them anyway.

The allegations in the statement of claim have not been proven in court.

Kerri Stoakley, a spokeswoman for Ford Canada, said the company had not seen the lawsuit.

Safety top concern: Ford

"The safety of our customers is our No. 1 priority," Stoakley said in an email.

"Ford vehicles meet or exceed all applicable Canadian motor vehicle safety standards. As with all our vehicles, Ford thoroughly tests extended passenger vans to ensure they provide a high level of safety."

On Thursday, Gurr was in Halifax, where she and the mother of a boy killed in a similar passenger van crash called on Canada's transport ministers to ban the vehicle.

Isabelle Hains's 17-year-old son, Daniel, was among seven high school basketball players killed in January 2008 when the 15-passenger Econoline they were in collided with a truck on a slushy highway near Bathurst, N.B. The wife of the players' coach also died in the crash.

Bill would ban van for school trips

Hains and Gurr are pushing federal politicians to pass Bill C-522, a private member's bill that would prohibit all schools from transporting students in 15-passenger vehicles.

New Brunswick, Quebec and Nova Scotia have already outlawed the use of the 15-passenger vans for public students.

Gurr's lawsuit is seeking compensation for families who have lost loved ones in similar van crashes, as well as refunds for van owners who may not have had an accident.

Evatt Merchant, a partner with the law firm representing Gurr, said the E-series vans seem prone to destructive rollovers.

"There's studies that ... seem to indicate that the rollover rate for this type of vehicle is much higher than for a small school bus or similar-type vehicle," he said from Saskatoon.

He said the problem could be that the van was originally designed to haul cargo, not people.

The statement of claim alleges that E-series seats are not securely bolted to the floor, seatbelts are defective and the vehicle's centre of gravity is too high when loaded with more than 10 passengers.

Ford failed to warn owners of these "dangerous defects," the document says.