In Amagasu v. Fred Beans Family of Dealerships et al., Case No. 1594 EDA 2024 (Superior Court of PA, December 22, 2025), Francis Amagasu was driving his personal 1992 Mitsubishi 3000GT in 2017 when he tried to overtake another vehicle. He unfortunately lost control of his car, and it rolled over and slammed into some trees. Despite wearing his seatbelt during the rollover, he still hit his head on the roof of the car and ended up with serious enough injuries that have left him a quadriplegic. The following year, Amagasu’s family filed a lawsuit against Mitsubishi.
A year later, the family of the victim was awarded $1 Billion in damages by the jury after a trial. The jury found enough evidence to award the victim’s family a staggering $1,009,969,295.32 in damages. This comes after the fact that the car, when sold brand new, passed all safety standards and regulations. The verdict breaks down as follows: “$156,488,384.01 in compensatory damages, including for past medical expenses ($925,477.01), future medical expenses ($12,581,723.00), future loss of earning capacity ($2,273,320.00), past non-economic damages ($20,000,000.00) and future non-economic damages ($120,000,000.00), and for loss of consortium ($20,000,000.00). Then the jury awarded $800,000,000.00 in punitive damages meant to punish Mitsubishi for the alleged defects.”
Mitsubishi appealed the case and was given a new trial by the court. The opinion of the appeals court states that: “In a crashworthiness case, the fact finder must consider whether the plaintiff bore his or her burden of specifically identifying the injury that a safer alternative design would have prevented, as well as the compensable injury that was ultimately caused by the alleged design defect. Without a jury instruction directing the jury on exactly how to consider this evidence, the trial court failed to ‘educate [the jury] as the points of law’ and how they were ‘to decide the case by applying the court’s instructions to the evidence presented.’” The key to reversal was that the instructions given over objection failed to mention that an alternative, safer and practicable design existed.