September, 1993 – Durwood Spivey, a 67 year old retired farmer, was killed when his B-7100 Kubota tractor overturned. Mr. Spivey was crushed by the weight of the 2500 pound Kubota tractor. The tractor, when sold, was not equipped with a rollover protection structure (ROPS) even though such protection was available to the tractor industry as far back as the late 1950’s.
During this litigation, we discovered that Kubota considered the likelihood of punitive damages when making its decision whether to include the ROPS on the tractor which would have saved his life.
The Spivey family settled their lawsuit against the Kubota defendants after 4 days of trial for $10,000,000. This was a voluntary settlement by the defendants after damaging testimony was presented to the jury.
