He may be missing two thumbs, but he’s made nearly $2 million.
In 2016, a jury awarded $1.9 million in damages to a Long Island man whose thumb was sliced off by a BMW’s powered (and ironically named “soft-close”) door.
Godwin Boateng, a 68-year-old software engineer from Valley Stream, was “elated” by Thursday’s sentence in Brooklyn federal court, which came nearly 10 years after his life-changing amputation surgery, his lawyer told The Washington Post.
“We are very happy with the verdict,” Boateng’s lawyer, Avi Cohen, said.
Cohen added that he and Boateng were glad they had held off on a “nominal” final settlement offer made by BMW just weeks before the trial.
Boateng paid $70,000 for the BMW X5, which he described to The Washington Post as his “dream” car, but the real cost was the slice of flesh off his right thumb, which was neatly sliced off by the self-closing door of this less-than-perfect driving machine in 2016.
Despite being rushed to a nearby hospital with his thumb in hand, surgeons declared the amputation performed in Germany too severe and a reunion would be impossible.
“The doctor came, looked at it and said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and he said, ‘We can’t do it.’ You can’t save him from the state he’s in,” Boateng told The Washington Post in 2018.
Since then, Boateng has said goodbye to his weekly tennis matches, has had to invent new ways of using tools and writing, and keeps his injured hands tucked in his pockets in shame and embarrassment.
“He’s lost the ability to function in everyday life,” Cohen said, noting that despite nearly a decade and several surgeries, the software engineer’s thumbs have become so sensitive that he can’t even type on a computer keyboard.
The jury did not find the German car maker liable on three other allegations, including that the door design was unsafe, but they believed BMW had not been completely honest when it said only a few people had been injured by the mechanism, Cohen said.
According to evidence presented at trial, BMW acknowledged that a 2016 investigation by German automotive regulators had revealed at least 44 reported cases of injuries caused by soft-close doors worldwide.
“The jury is [BMW] Deceptive [their] “Practice”
“You’re not being honest, you’re not being candid, you’re not protecting your customers,” Cohen said of BMW.
Boateng still owns the BMW X5 and thinks it’s a great car except for the door defect, but he told his lawyers he remains surprised that BMW fought the case so hard and ended up paying more than it should have in settlement.
“I can’t believe it. They had the opportunity to avoid all this trouble and they didn’t take it seriously,” Boateng said after the verdict, according to Cohen.
BMW lawyer Phil Dirani pointed to the jury’s rejection of the defect claim and said: “The company stands behind its products and denies any allegation that the vehicle in question caused Mr Boateng’s injuries.”
But in their verdict, the jury rejected BMW’s argument that Boateng was at least partly responsible for disfiguring himself, saying the responsibility lay entirely with the company.
“We will appeal if necessary,” Dirani said.
