Mr. Kaufman was driving his wife and daughter to visit a friend in their new Ford Thunderbird. When the car stopped at its destination, the daughter exited from the front passenger seat. Mrs. Kaufman, who was seated in the rear behind her, pushed the back of the front seat forward and tried to step out of the car. However, in doing so, she tripped on the seat belt anchorage -- which was difficult to see and avoid -- and plunged headlong out of the car, fracturing her femur in three places.

To help her obtain compensation for her injury and suffering, she secured the law firm of Jaroslawicz and Jaros in New York City. TA was called in for expert opinion by Herbert Horowitz, an associate of that firm.

In court, the Ford Motor Company argued that it was not possible to safely manufacture the floor anchorage of the seat belt and still satisfy government safety standards. TA challenged this argument by displaying alternative seat belt designs on the Thunderbird itself, as well as on other two-door cars that require passengers to exit from the rear after folding the front seat back forward. TA engineers showed further that instead of designing the floor retention boot in the middle of the pathway, Ford engineers could have had it installed closer to the front seat or further back to place it out of the way of the rear passenger's path. Ford was unable to mount a convincing counter-argument and the jury awarded the plaintiff $1.3 million.