A Pulaski County jury has rejected claims by the survivors of a Little Rock man that he was killed by a defective tractor in a May 2012 lawn-mowing accident.
Cedric Quinn Hill, 48, was found crushed to death under a Kubota L275 tractor on Mine Hill Drive in North Little Rock.
He'd been pulling a bush hog with the tractor to earn $50 for mowing the lot at 52 Mine Hill Drive at the intersection with Prospect Trail off Crystal Hill Road.
There were no witnesses to the accident. Police were called by a neighbor who saw a man's body under the tractor.
Hill's mother, 75-year-old Geneva Hill, sued Japanese manufacturer Kubota Corp. and its Arkansas affiliate in December 2012.
On Tuesday, jurors cleared Kubota of any responsibility for Cedric Hill's death after a seven-day trial before Circuit Judge Chris Piazza. Jurors deliberated about an hour before a nine-member majority agreed that there was no wrongdoing by the company in the way the tractor was built and sold.
Geneva Hill contended that the tractor was defectively designed and built without necessary safety equipment like a roll bar and seat belts, which made it "unreasonably dangerous."
Metro on 12/16/2017