Mazda Motor Corporation will pay a Starkville, Mississippi woman $2.7 million after an Oktibbeha jury found against the automaker in a product liability case. Velma Ruth Seavy filed the lawsuit after a September 11, 1993 accident left her paralyzed from the waist down.
Seavy's attorney told jurors that when the 1992 Mazda Protégé was struck from behind, the driver's seat collapsed backwards, throwing Seavy into the backseat. The force fractured her 12th vertebra and left her paralyzed.