A Mother of Three Gone: Sacramento Family Sues Over Preventable SUV Tragedy

Sue Rooney’s daughters remember her best when surrounded by the people she loved most — her six grandchildren gathered around the table at her house, eating her food, watching her light up in a way that nothing else could match. She was the glue holding everything together. Then, on May 15, just days after turning 70, that bond fractured forever in a driveway in Sacramento.

What happened that afternoon reads almost like a preventable accident — the kind where you ask yourself,“This didn’t have to happen.”Rooney had spent the afternoon babysitting. She started her 2020 Land Rover Discovery, got out to tell her son-in-law something, and the car began rolling in reverse on a flat driveway. The vehicle’s door hit her. She fell. The SUV rolled over her. Within days, the grandmother of six was gone.

Now her family is fighting back. Their lawsuit against Jaguar Land Rover alleges something damning: the vehicle had all the technology necessary to prevent this tragedy, but the manufacturer chose not to enable it. The car’s dial selector is confusing enough that drivers can believe they’ve shifted into park when they haven’t. More critically, the vehicle lacks what’s called a“driver exit strategy”— technology that automatically secures the transmission when it detects a driver exiting with the engine running and the transmission not in park. JLR knew about similar rollaway incidents, attorney Dylan Ruga argues, yet did nothing.

Jaguar Land Rover’s response was carefully measured: the company expressed sadness over the incident and declined further comment due to pending litigation. It’s the kind of statement that leaves the real question hanging in the air — why wouldn’t a company with the means to prevent deaths choose to do so?

For Erin Farrell and Kathleen Rooney, this lawsuit is about more than legal accountability. It’s about ensuring that another family doesn’t have to learn to live without the person who made them whole.“There needs to be change,”Farrell said.“Like this car cannot continue to be on the road and continue to potentially take lives.”