Did you guys harping on her for driving like an idiot actually read the details? Honda performed an update to all of those Civic Hybrids, and the mileage fell dramatically afterwords. There was obviously enough evidence for the separate class-action suit to win, too.
This is not a case of a "loose nut", but rather a case of a manufacturer making a change to the vehicle (to save $$$ on warranty claims because they engineered a POS) that had a significant negative impact on the advertised mileage, that affected all the drivers across the board.