In 1987, Ford Motor Co. aggressively recruited black North Carolina businessman Samuel R. Foster II to join the company's "Minority Dealer Program," which it began in the 1960s in an effort to increase black ownership of local franchised Ford dealerships. As a result, in March 1988, Mr. Foster bought the River City Ford dealership in Selma, Alabama. In 1991, the dealership went bankrupt and closed. Mr. Foster promptly sued Ford, claiming that they had committed intentional, malicious fraud by failing to disclose internal data to him indicating that blacks, as a group, were more likely to fail than the "average," non-minority Ford dealer.

The Alabama Supreme Court sustained a lower court's $6 million punitive damage award against Ford, plus compensatory awards of $700,000 for "mental anguish" and nearly $1 million for economic loss. Mr. Foster's partner Dee-Witt Sperau, who is white, also joined the suit and will share in the awards.

[Ed: Like a snake eating its tail, liability can stem from failure to provide the sort of information that is often considered racist...]

†