KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Beth Woodruff grew more worried with each passing minute. Her husband should have arrived home by now with their two young children. He should have answered his phone.
So when a neighbor told her something was going on at the entrance to their Knox County subdivision, Woodruff rushed outside. Six years later, the images she saw still play like a slideshow in her mind.
Her husband’s car sat badly mangled. Someone held her 4-year-old daughter, bloodied, covered in glass and crying. A group of strangers pulled her 6-year-old son from the wreckage and laid him down.
“I can remember him looking broken,” Woodruff told Knox News. “He just looked like a doll that somebody had thrown on the ground.”
Woodruff later learned her husband, Ben, had been killed, and her son, Ethan, had suffered a devastating brain injury that would change everything about their lives. She learned the man who caused the wreck was a four-time drunken driver who had taken drugs and hopped behind the wheel again. And she learned something might have gone wrong with Ethan’s seat belt, leaving him vulnerable during a catastrophic crash.
It didn’t take long for the impaired driver to plead guilty and receive a 20-year prison sentence. But that only marked the beginning of a convoluted legal battle over Ethan’s seat belt that would stretch on for years, pitting his mother against one of the world's largest auto manufacturers and raising questions about whether other parents might be unknowingly placing their young children at risk.
In March 2013, Ben Woodruff bought a new car. With it came a new problem.
Car manufacturers had begun recessing seat belt buckles to lie flush in the back seats of vehicles. This industry change made seat belts safer for adults, an engineer would later testify, but came with an unintended consequence. Children sitting in booster seats often found it difficult, if not impossible, to buckle themselves in. Some parents might have to move the booster seat — their child in it — to buckle or unbuckle every time they got in or out of the car.
Ben ran into this issue with Ethan in his 2012 Nissan Juke. He shared his frustration with his wife, said he would go online to hunt a solution and later reported he had found a fix.
"It was such an everyday thing," Beth Woodruff recalled. "You buy the thing, you put the thing in the car."
It wasn’t until after the crash that she learned her husband had solved the problem by purchasing a seat belt extender — stamped with Ford Motor Company’s logo and designed for certain Ford cars — from a third-party website that sold it to him for the wrong vehicle and the wrong purpose.
Seat belt extenders, typically made of a metal tongue and buckle connected by a strip of webbing, are designed to be used by larger people who can’t stretch a normal-length seat belt around their bodies to buckle in. They are not meant to be used with child car seats, and most auto manufacturers explicitly warn that doing so can lead to serious injury or death.
But that’s not what Jay Solomon was telling his customers.
Solomon, then a 20-something from Atlanta, studied religion in college and tried writing a book about the TV show "South Park" before launching several websites to sell products online. With no relevant training or experience, he began peddling seat belt extenders, first buying them from China before finding a source closer to home — a Ford dealership employee.
Solomon met Derek Martin through eBay, where Martin himself had been selling extenders. Martin, a self-described “bigger guy,” realized he could make money off extenders after he bought one for his Mustang from a Ford dealership in Toccoa, Georgia, a town of about 8,500 people some 90 miles northeast of Atlanta. Martin worked at the parts counter there from 2004 until 2011.
Although Ford’s policy dictates dealerships give extenders for free to the few customers who need them, Martin testified in a deposition he never received any instruction about the distribution of seat belt extenders or the dangers of their misuse. Whenever a customer would come into the dealership and ask for one, Martin said, the dealership would sell it to them, “no questions asked.”
In 2009, Martin asked his manager if he could order extenders from Ford and sell them online. According to Martin, the manager said, “Sure. I don’t see any problem with it.” So Martin began buying extenders in bulk for two cents apiece and selling them on eBay for about $15 each. He purchased them through the dealership until 2012, continuing even after he quit working there.
Both Seat Belt Extender Pros and Booster Buckle advertised seat belt extenders for use with booster seats — even though experts say that's unsafe. Ads posted on both company's websites appeared to show the same child.
Martin and Solomon told different stories about how their business relationship began. But, one way or another, Martin ended up selling to Solomon a type of extender designed only for the front seats of 2000-2007 Ford Focuses. Solomon, in turn, resold extenders through his websites, including More of Me to Love (“the premier brand for products for plus-sized people”), Booster Buckle (a now-defunct website that advertised extenders for use with booster seats) and Seat Belt Extender Pros.
Visitors to the Seat Belt Extender Pros website could select the make and model of their vehicle, as well as the seating position for which they wanted an extender. They wouldn’t necessarily receive an extender that had been designed for that vehicle, however. Solomon conducted his own research about which extenders fit in which vehicles and sent customers products he thought would work.
"Just because a random tongue clicks into a buckle doesn't mean that that's a full-strength latch," Roger Burnett, a Ford engineer, would later testify in a deposition in Woodruff's lawsuit.
In 2013, court records show, Seat Belt Extender Pros advertised extenders as "excellent" and "ideal" for booster seats. The company's website displayed a mother's glowing testimonial alongside a photo of smiling kids buckled into booster seats with extenders. Multiple reviews, purportedly written by parents, praised the product.
"It was hard to access the rear seat belt tucked in the seat next to my grandson's car seat," one review read. "The extension solved that problem and he can buckle up by himself without my having to crawl across him in the rear seat."
Missed opportunities
Ford has known for more than a decade that parents have misused seat belt extenders and dealerships have distributed them without oversight, yet the company has taken little action to ensure their safe use, Woodruff's attorneys allege in a recent motion opposing a move by Ford to remove itself from the lawsuit.
Customer emails show Ford officials learned as far back as 2007 that parents were attempting to use extenders to buckle their children into booster seats, the motion states. And internal communications show Ford realized in 2008 that some dealerships had been ordering large numbers of extenders and reselling them online.
Ford responded by issuing a memo to all dealerships reminding them of the policy that extenders should be ordered only for customers who need them and never sold. Ford also tasked an employee with investigating online sellers, but that effort seemed to fade when the employee left the company, according to the motion.
In 2012, several higher-ups at Ford received an anonymous letter warning of the goings-on at Toccoa Ford Lincoln Mercury. After an investigation revealed the dealership had ordered more than 96,000 seat belt extenders over a four-year span — a massive figure compared to other dealerships — Ford officials began asking, "Who is Derek Martin?"
According to emails between Ford officials, Derek Martin's bosses at Toccoa Ford Lincoln Mercury knew he was ordering seat belt extenders in bulk just to resell them online, but they thought he wasn't breaking any rules.
The probe found Martin's former bosses knew about his dealings but didn't think he had broken any rules. At one point, a manager even witnessed him field a call from a Ford official in Atlanta after he ordered so many extenders at once he "overloaded the system and shut it down." Martin testified that when he told the caller he had been reselling the extenders, she said fine — just don't order more than what's in stock.
The investigation also identified about three dozen dealerships that had each sold more than 3,000 extenders over the past four years. At least one email between Ford officials mentioned a buyback program, according to the motion, but none was implemented.
"Proving its only concern was monetary, all of the steps Ford took at this time centered around preventing others from profiting off Ford's customer giveaway program — not preventing children from getting injured or killed," Woodruff's attorneys, Dan Stanley and Richard Collins, wrote. "Indeed, the only actual change was to the packaging of its seat belt extenders — not to warn against use with child car and booster seats — but to state: NOT FOR RESALE — MUST BE PROVIDED TO CUSTOMER AT NO CHARGE."
Six months after Ford officials discovered Seat Belt Extender Pros, Ben Woodruff visited the website that advertised extenders as "perfect" for booster seats, ordered an extender for the back seat of his 2012 Nissan Juke and was shipped one for the front seat of a Ford Focus.
As it turns out, Nissan does not make extenders for the back seats of its vehicles.
'See you at home'
On Aug. 23, 2013, Ben and Beth Woodruff left work in Pigeon Forge and headed back to Knoxville in separate cars. The couple, who had been married for 11 years, commuted to and from the tourist mecca, where Ben worked as a graphic designer for Ole Smoky Moonshine and Beth as an office manager at the attraction WonderWorks.
Beth planned to take Ethan and Kate to Nashville to celebrate her mother's birthday. Ben was supposed to pick up the kids from daycare and then meet her at home.
On the way, husband and wife happened to stop side by side at a red light in Seymour.
The Woodruff pose for a family portrait before the accident.
"We rolled down the windows," Beth recalled as she sat at her kitchen table on a recent afternoon in November. "He said, 'Hey sexy,' and I said hey back. I said, 'I'll see you at home,' and he said, 'OK, I love you.' I said, 'I love you too.'"
She paused for a moment, then let out a sigh.
"You never know when it's going to be the last thing you say to somebody."
Ben almost made it home. He was waiting to turn from East Gov. John Sevier Highway into his subdivision on Austin Lane, his kids sitting in the back seat, when an SUV barreled across the center line at 65 mph and slammed head-on into his stopped car. His Juke spun into the path of an oncoming minivan, which crashed into the driver's side and sent the car skidding to a stop in the middle of the road.
A motorist who came upon the scene and rushed to help climbed atop the mangled Juke and peered through the broken glass of the sunroof. He saw Ben slumped over the wheel, dead, and Kate in her car seat, awake but in shock. He worked with other bystanders to pry open the driver's side door and free the 4-year-old from the back seat. She was shaken up, scraped and bruised, but not seriously injured.
Then they saw Ethan, unconscious and lying on his left side, his head wedged between Kate's car seat and the back seat of the Juke. Witnesses said it looked as if the upper half of his body had fallen forward, limp, while his hips remained at least partially in his booster seat.
Ethan suffered a broken femur and permanent brain damage, much of it to his frontal lobe. Even after spending months in the hospital and years in physical therapy, he will never be the same.
Scott Spangler
Failure to warn
Blood tests showed the driver of the SUV who crossed the center line, Scott Spangler, had Xanax and cocaine in his system at the time of the crash. Spangler, who had at least four prior DUI convictions in Tennessee, pleaded guilty in April 2014 to charges including aggravated vehicular homicide. He received a 20-year sentence and is now eligible for parole.
In July of that year, Beth Woodruff sued Spangler, Ford Motor Company and Seat Belt Extender Pros in Knox County Circuit Court. The lawsuit claims the seat belt extender failed, leaving Ethan unrestrained and unprotected during the crash, and blames the companies for failing to warn of the danger of using extenders with booster seats. Woodruff is seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Over the past five years, attorneys involved in the case have pointed fingers at new companies who have then been sued, at Spangler for causing the crash in the first place and at the Woodruffs themselves for improperly using the extender with a booster seat. Legal back-and-forth has filled 29 thick folders in the City-County building in downtown Knoxville. Lawyers have appeared in court so often that at the start of a recent hearing, Judge Bill Ailor kicked off proceedings by saying, "Welcome home."
Several companies — Autoliv, which manufactures extenders for Ford; Travelers Insurance, which allowed the Nissan Juke to be destroyed during litigation; and Seat Belt Extender Pros, which sold the extender to the Woodruffs — have agreed to settle, though many of those details remain under seal. Still defending themselves are Ford and Dorel Juvenile Group, which made the booster seat used by the family.
If the case goes to trial next summer as scheduled, key details will be in dispute. Ford denies all claims in the lawsuit, and has vigorously defended itself. Based on court records, the company likely will call witnesses and experts to deny the extender broke, say Ethan was still restrained after the crash and argue other parties are more to blame for his injuries. Ford's attorneys likely will assert it can't be held liable for a failure-to-warn claim in this case, and that Ben Woodruff in fact "was warned — clearly and repeatedly."
It's unclear which warnings, if any, Ben read before using the seat belt extender in his car. What's clear is that if he had read everything, he would have received mixed messages.
A warning on the extender itself said not to use it "unless it is physically required in order to wear the vehicle's safety belt," and the manual for the Juke clearly stated, "Never use seat belt extenders to install child restraints." But the manual for the booster seat read, "If your vehicle belt is too short, contact your vehicle dealer for a seat belt extender," and Seat Belt Extender Pros called extenders "perfect" for booster seats.
In recent months, Ailor has dealt three significant blows to Ford. The judge struck down Ford's attempt to remove itself from the lawsuit. He ordered the company to pay Woodruff's attorney fees after finding Ford representatives intentionally withheld documents during the discovery process. And he ruled the jury will not hear evidence of Spangler's impairment because it's irrelevant, leaving more time to focus on Ford's actions.
An attorney for Ford told Knox News the company does not comment on pending litigation. Neither Martin nor Solomon — who moved to Hungary and claimed he sold his corporate assets to his brother-in-law after the crash — responded to repeated requests for comment.
Ethan, 13, Beth, and Kate Woodruff, 10, (from left) play the Game of Life at their home Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019 in Nashville, Tenn.
Life since the crash
Sitting in her home in Nashville on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Beth Woodruff coughed, then apologized — she'd been sick. Her father brought her a glass of water as Ethan and Kate played their version of soccer in a tiny room upstairs. Every few minutes, a suspiciously loud thump would shake the ceiling.
"I'll probably have to check on them in a minute," the mother said, laughing.
Everything about their lives has changed, Woodruff explained. After the crash, she couldn't take care of Ethan and Kate alone, so she moved into the house in Nashville with her parents and grandparents. Due to Ethan's needs, she hasn't been able to hold down a full-time job, so she works part time for friends who know she needs flexibility.
Ethan Woodruff, 13, plays soccer at his home Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019 in Nashville, Tenn.
Now 13, Ethan still has trouble tying his shoes. Even at his home, where he's most familiar with the terrain, he can't walk far without bouncing off a cabinet, grabbing a wall or falling down. He gets on all fours to crawl up stairs and sits to scoot down them. Outside the house, he has to use a walker or otherwise recruit help to stay upright.
Ethan's brain has difficulty processing where his body is in space, so he's especially accident prone. Speaking takes effort, and complex tasks — such as taking a test at school — can be a nightmare. Reading a passage, remembering it as he reads a question, remembering the question as he thinks of an answer and then remembering what he was going to write as he writes it — it can be a lot to deal with.
Still, Ethan is not unlike most 13-year-old boys. He loves video games, playing sports and is "rambunctious," his mother said. She whipped out her cellphone to show off a video of him, held up by a large man, breaking a wooden block with his hand during a taekwondo class for kids with special needs.
Beth Woodruff said she's had to learn a "new vocabulary" since the crash. She's learned about individualized education programs and how best to advocate for Ethan so he has a chance to thrive in school. She's learned about the minutiae of insurance and how best to make the system work for her son. She's also relearned the middle school curriculum, as she has to help Ethan with homework nearly every day.
Ethan Woodruff, 13, plays with his sister Kate, 10, at their home Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2019 in Nashville, Tenn.
It's exhausting, Woodruff said, to follow every detail of the legal battle she's tied up in, to constantly revisit the worst day of her life. But she has stuck with the lawsuit because she worries other parents could be putting their children in harm's way.
"My concern is how many other parents out there are in the same situation we were in?" she said. "They buy a new car or buy a new car seat, find a problem, think that they’ve found a solution to the problem and then are driving around thinking that they’ve made the safe choice for their kid. How many people are doing that? I don’t know."
Reach Travis Dorman at travis.dorman@knoxnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @travdorman.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Mom blames Ford seat belt extender for son's brain damage after crash