Court Orders DaimlerChrysler To Pay $259 Million For Child's Death

The German-U.S. car maker, DaimlerChrysler, has been ordered by a U.S. court to pay $259 million in damages for an accident in which a 6-year-old boy was killed when he was thrown from a Chrysler vehicle in 1994. The ruling by a court in Charleston, S.C., upheld an earlier court judgment from 1997, but reduced the amount DaimlerChrysler had been ordered to pay by $3.5 million. The car maker had appealed against the 1997 ruling and said it would appeal the latest judgment. According to a statement on the company's Web site, the driver ran a red light and the child was not restrained by a seat belt. The plaintiffs claimed that the boy had been thrown from the vehicle because of a faulty tailgate lock.