Lawsuit alleges carmakers knew of deadly airbag defects

Court documents filed yesterday allege that five auto companies were aware of defects that caused Takata airbags to potentially harm or kill motorists but continued to use them anyway to save on costs.

The documents claim that Honda, Ford, BMW, Toyota and Nissan have known about the issues with the Japanese manufacturer’s airbags for more than a decade but still used them because Takata was cheaper than its competitors and could produce the bulk quantities the automakers needed, according to the court documents.

The new allegations come as Takata entered a guilty plea yesterday as part of an agreement with the United States Department of Justice to resolve the agency’s investigation into the matter. That deal, reached last month in the final days of the Obama Administration, required the company to pay US$1 billion ($1.4b) in fines and restitution to automakers and victims. In December, three Takata executives were indicted on wire fraud charges, also as part of that investigation.

Yesterday’s allegations are the latest in a civil lawsuit initially filed in 2015 against Takata and seven carmakers by attorneys representing people injured by the faulty airbags. They raise new questions about who should shoulder blame for the 11 deaths and 180 injuries the airbags have caused in the US, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as others around the globe.

Takata admitted to the Justice Department in January that its employees deliberately omitted and falsified data to make its airbags appear safer, then passed the doctored information on to automakers.

Car companies pointed to that confession last week as a reason why they should be exonerated from any liability in the civil lawsuit.

But lawyers representing the victims say automakers had inde- pendent information that the airbags were faulty and chose to continue installing them in millions of vehicles, according to yesterday’s filing.

“For the automotive defendants to call themselves victims insults the real victims here — hundreds of people who have been seriously injured or killed by a device that was supposed to protect them, and tens of millions of vehicle owners who have been forced to bear the risk of such injury and incurred substantial economic damages,” the documents say.

Toyota and Ford declined to comment on the accusations. Nissan and BMW did not immediately return requests for comment.

The lawyers allege that Honda was “intimately involved” with the design of Takata’s airbags and that at least two airbag inflaters ruptured during testing at Honda’s facilities in 1999 and 2000.

Honda used the airbags anyway, according to the court documents, and at least 77 airbags ruptured on the road before the company implemented a nationwide recall.

Honda called the allegations that it used the airbags despite safety concerns “categorically false and pointed to the Takata settlement as evidence that automakers were misled to believe the product met safety standards”. — Washington Post