Updated at 7:05p.m. with a statement from Toyota.

A Dallas County jury on Friday awarded more than $242 million to a family after finding that manufacturer defects in their Lexus ES 300 caused their children to suffer serious and permanent injuries during a rear-end collision in 2016.

The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for more than eight hours before finding that the front seats of Benjamin and Kristi Reavis' 2002 Lexus ES 300 were, as the plaintiffs argued, "unreasonably dangerous."

Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales also didn't warn the family about that danger, which amounted to gross negligence, jurors agreed. Their verdict included more than $143.6 million in punitive damages.

The family's legal team presented evidence they said showed engineering, design and structural issues with the front seat backs of the vehicle. The lawyers argued Toyota consciously chose to protect front-seat occupants in accidents at the expense of rear-seat passengers.

The Reavis family's incident occurred in September 2016 while they were driving southbound on North Central Expressway. The couple's 3-year-old son, Owen, and 5-year-old daughter, Emily, were in child safety seats in the rear.

The car was stopped in traffic when it was rear-ended by a Honda Pilot driven by a Jacksonville, Fla., man. The impact caused the front seats of the Lexus to collapse backward into the seats of the children, who sustained skull fractures and traumatic brain injuries, according to court documents.

"This is a danger that Toyota has known about," attorney Frank Branson said in a press release, representing the family. "This company has had plenty of time to design around these safety shortcomings."

Jurors found the corporation and sales branch 95 percent liable for the damages, with the driver of the Honda, Michael Mummaw, liable for the remainder.

The company, which in 2017 relocated its North American corporate headquarters to Plano, released a statement Friday that said it would "consider our options moving forward."

"While we respect the jury's decision, we remain confident that the injuries sustained were the result of factors specific to this very severe collision, not a defect in the design or manufacturing of the 2002 Lexus ES300," the company statement said.