Audi Loses $124 Million Texas Verdict Over Seat-Back Failure

  • Seat couldn't withstand read-end crash, parents said in suit
  • Boy was left partly paralayzed and blind in one eye: lawyer
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A Texas jury ordered Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit to pay $124.5 million to an 11-year-old boy who was left brain damaged in a 2012 rear-end collision.

The parents of Jesse Rivera Jr. claimed the seat back of the 2005 Audi A4 was too weak to withstand a rear-end crash. The front seat collapsed, and the driver, the boy’s father, slid backwards hitting his head on his son’s in the back seat, said the family’s attorney, Jeff Wigington.