Blog Post

Jury Awards $5 Million to Family of Baby Killed in Jeep Grand Cherokee Accident


April 15, 2008
Topic: Motor Vehicle Defects

For 8 years, August Guillot has carried a horrible guilt in his heart - that he might have unknowingly caused the death of his then unborn child. Now, a jury in Chalmette, Louisiana has given the father the news he had been hoping to hear - that Chrysler, the company that manufactured the SUV that killed his child, was to blame for the accident.

In May 1999, August was getting ready to drive his wife Juli to the hospital. Juli was due to give birth to their son. Their three-year-old daughter Madison was strapped into the car seat. Juli suddenly remembered she had to go back into the house to pick up something, and got out of the Jeep. August meanwhile set the SUV in park, and got out to retrieve his cell phone from the back seat. At that point, just a few seconds after August had stepped out of the Cherokee, the vehicle suddenly power reversed. It pinned Juli against a brick pillar.

The trauma of the accident was severe enough to rupture Juli's uterus and push the baby into her abdominal cavity. She was rushed for an emergency C -section and the baby boy, named Colin, was delivered. He had suffered extensive brain injures, and had suffered from lack of oxygen during the time that his mother had been pinned between the car and the pillar. Colin was taken off life support two-and-a-half-weeks after he was born.

At the time, August believed that he had been responsible for the horrible tragedy. He believed that he had gotten out of the Jeep after putting it in reverse, and not in park. How else, he figured, could the vehicle have suddenly gone into reverse? The local sheriff's office investigated him for criminal negligence. A grand jury, however, declined to bring a negligent homicide charge against him.

Chrysler sent an investigator of its own to look into the causes of the tragedy. It now appears that the company had been aware of a defect in its transmission that caused the vehicle to move from park to reverse automatically. The company did not inform Guillot nor law enforcement agencies about this defect.

Unaware of all this, August continued to blame himself for his son's death. That is until a Los Angeles Times reporter who was investigating Chrysler vehicle defects got in touch with him to inform him that another such "roll back" had occurred with another Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicle earlier.

The couple filed a lawsuit against Chrysler, alleging that the company had denied hundreds of complaints with its vehicle. The jury has come back with a $5 million verdict against the company for the death of Colin Guillot, injuries suffered by Juli, August and Madison.

At the trial, it came to light that at least 200 complaints had been received regarding the problem, but the company had not seen fit to warn drivers. Had the defect been rectified much earlier, it's possible the Guillots today would have remained a family of four.

If you or a loved one have been injured or killed due to a defective car part on a dangerous SUV model, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.


The California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group represent victims of accidents, injuries and wrongful death throughout California from our offices in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Ventura County, Fresno County, Kern County, Sacramento County, San Fernando Valley, Long Beach, Antelope Valley, Torrance, Glendale, Bakersfield, Santa Ana, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Ontario, and Victorville.