Mexican Media Brands
Lawsuits Claim Carmakers Ignored Faulty Takata Airbag Inflators
A bevy of lawsuits claims major carmakers knew for years about defective Takata Corp. airbag inflators before recalling the devices, The Detroit News reports.
#legal
Share
A bevy of lawsuits claims major carmakers knew for years about defective Takata Corp. airbag inflators before recalling the devices, The Detroit News reports.
The complaints, all of which seek class-action status, were filed yesterday in U.S. District Courts in Georgia against Daimler, in Michigan against General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and in Georgia against Daimler.
The lawsuits say the defendant carmakers knew about exploding Takata inflators a decade ago but didn’t begin recalling them until 2014. The complaints claim airbag maker Autoliv Inc. warned FCA and GM in the late 1990s that the ammonium nitrate propellants Takata used were prone to explode when triggered by a crash.
Takata inflators have since been blamed for at least 22 fatalities worldwide. About 120 million of the devices are being recalled globally by 19 carmakers, about half of them in the U.S.
The News says the Michigan lawsuit asserts that FCA and GM were “intimately involved in the design and testing” of airbags equipped with Takata inflators and knew or should have known they were defective. GM calls the lawsuit baseless, without merit and inaccurate.
RELATED CONTENT
-
Ghosn Indicted on Two More Charges in Japan
Prosecutors in Japan have prolonged jail time for former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn by filing two new charges against him.
-
The Law and Autonomous Cars
Features that enable your car to drive itself are coming to market now, but regulations to govern their performance have lagged, notes Jennifer Dukarski, an attorney with the Butzel Long law firm.
-
Tesla’s Autopilot Feature Deemed Partly to Blame in Fatal Crash
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has concluded that Tesla Inc.’s semi-autonomous Autopilot feature was partly to blame for a crash 15 months ago that killed one of the carmaker’s customers.