A Michigan state court jury in Oakland County Circuit Court returned a roughly $32.7 million verdict on September 11 in Walker v. Continental Automotive Systems Inc., Case No. 2024-209675-NO, the third consecutive trial arising from a 2023 test track crash involving a prototype vehicle that struck onlookers. The three trials proceeded after Continental Automotive Systems Inc. admitted liability, leaving jurors to determine damages for separate plaintiffs. The latest award brought the combined verdicts arising from the accident to approximately $931 million. The cases proceeded through three damages trials before Judge David Cohen between July and September 2026.
Test Track Crash and the Consolidated Dispute Over Damages
The underlying incident occurred in July 2023 during a field trip connected to a summer STEM program. A Ford Mustang Dark Horse prototype was involved in a demonstration at Continental’s Auburn Hills test track. According to the plaintiffs’ allegations, the driver lost control of the vehicle during the demonstration, and the car struck a group of people standing near the track. Those allegations framed the factual context for damages across the three proceedings, even as liability was not contested in the trials.
With Continental stipulating to liability in each case, the litigation focus shifted to individualized proof of injury and the extent of compensable loss for separate plaintiffs, including Vincent Gibson and children injured in the crash. The parties litigated damages issues across successive jury trials throughout the summer and into September. The third verdict, reached September 11, addressed injuries to the other child injured at the track. The same accident also generated two earlier verdicts in late July and early August: one for Vincent Gibson’s injured child and one on Gibson’s bystander claim.
First Test Track Trial: $896.5 Million Verdict for Catastrophic Brain Injury
The first trial went to verdict in late July and resulted in a $896,467,970 award to one of Vincent Gibson’s minor children. The child was reported to have suffered permanent brain injuries and severe fractures in the collision, a severity level that often drives the largest components of damages in personal injury litigation. While Continental admitted liability, the jury was asked to place a monetary value on the consequences of the injury as presented through the evidence at trial.
That late-July result was described as believed to be the largest single-plaintiff verdict in Michigan history. In practical terms, it also set the trajectory for the remaining proceedings by demonstrating that juries could return extremely high awards even where the defendant’s fault was established and the only remaining dispute was the magnitude of harm. Plaintiffs’ counsel included Jon Marko of Marko Law PLLC. Marko told CVN that Continental did not make a settlement offer at any point in the litigation despite its admitted-liability posture.
Second and Third Trials: Bystander Award, $32.7 Million Verdict, and No-Offer Posture
A second trial concluded in early August with an approximately $2.07 million verdict on Vincent Gibson’s bystander claim. That award was described as believed to be the largest bystander verdict in Michigan history. The bystander claim proceeded as a separate damages case, again with Continental’s liability admitted and the principal dispute centered on the appropriate measure of damages tied to Gibson’s claimed injury from witnessing the event and its aftermath as presented to the jury.
The third proceeding produced the roughly $32.7 million verdict on September 11 for the other child injured at the test track, bringing the combined verdicts from the three proceedings to approximately $931 million. The plaintiffs’ team included Jon Marko and John Eads of Marko Law, along with Scott Goodwin of Scott Goodwin Law. Continental was represented by Clyde & Co. and Gordon & Rees. Marko attributed the lack of a settlement offer to what he described as communication failures involving Continental and its insurers, identifying Allianz as the primary-level carrier in his comments to CVN.
Insurance-Limits Sanction and Practical Implications for Civil Litigation
Following the trials, Marko told CVN that Judge Cohen imposed a $1 million sanction related to Continental’s insurance-limit disclosures. Because the publicly available reporting characterizes the issue through counsel’s account, the scope and basis of that order should be described cautiously unless the order itself is available.
The three damages trials illustrate that admitted liability does not eliminate litigation risk. When parties sharply disagree over the value of severe injuries, particularly injuries to children, damages-only proceedings can still require extensive trial time and produce substantial verdicts.
