Wrongful death suit over air bags filed in Federal Court
By Amanda Bronstad, From The National Law Journal
The first known lawsuit in federal court over a death linked to Takata Corp.’s recalls has been filed by the brother of a South Carolina woman who died after her air bag deployed during an automobile accident in 2008.
Mary Lynn Wolfe, 57, was driving her 2002 Honda Accord in Orangeburg, S.C., when she veered off the roadway, hitting a mailbox and a tree, according to the suit, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for South Carolina. She died 18 days later at a hospital after suffering respiratory failure, liver problems, brain injuries and spinal fractures. The air bag deployed with “excessive force,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit was filed one day after Takata’s senior vice president for global quality assurance, Hiroshi Shimizu, appeared for the first time on Capitol Hill. U.S. Senators pressured Takata to conduct an independent investigation into the defect. A federal grand jury in New York is investigating the defect.
Kevin Dean, a member of Mount Pleasant, S.C.-based Motley Rice, who represents the plaintiff Robert Lyon Jr., said the air bag caused his sister’s spinal injuries.
“During one of those frontal impacts the force of the air bag caused spinal fractures,” he said.
The suit names Takata and its U.S. subsidiaries, including TK Holdings Inc. as well as Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiaries. Alby Berman, a spokeswoman for TK Holdings Inc., based in Auburn Hills, Mich., declined to comment. A call to American Honda Motor Co. Inc. in Torrance, Calif., was not returned.
Honda and nine other auto companies have recalled 7.8 million U.S. cars and trucks worldwide over a defect that could cause Takata air bags to explode, pelting drivers with metal shrapnel. This month, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration demanded that the recalls, which have been limited to hot and humid climates, be expanded to vehicles nationwide.
More than 30 lawsuits have been filed against Takata and several of the auto companies, including Honda. Most of the lawsuits are class actions brought on behalf of consumers, alleging that Takata and Honda knew of the defect as early as 2001, but at least two have been filed in federal court by injured drivers.
Plaintiffs lawyers have estimated that at least five people worldwide have died due to the defect.
The family of one of those victims, Hien Tran, filed a wrongful-death action in state court in Florida on Nov. 17 against Takata and Honda. Tran died on Oct. 2 three days after her 2001 Honda Accord hit another car and her air bag exploded. Her death was originally investigated as a homicide due to the shrapnel wounds she suffered.
Wolfe would be the sixth death.
Dean, who is pinpointing cause of the problem to the use of ammonium nitrite, the chemical used to make the air bag inflate, said his case did not involve metal shards.
“It’s the propellant that is the problem here, with the explosive nature of these air bags,” he said. “The air bag will have much greater force and smack somebody in the face. The way I look at it is like dynamite in your air bag, and you didn’t know it.”
IMAGE: Motley Rice attorney Kevin Dean
