Airbags, Auto Accidents & Associated Liability

Were You Injured in an Accident That Involved a Defective Car Part?

Having a car accident can be a traumatic experience for everyone involved. This is especially true if someone gets injured. When you are in an accident, there is always going to be property damage. But depending on the severity, there may also be medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering that may impact you for the rest of your life.

This is one of the reasons why it is so important to have the right insurance coverage, and always consider hiring a personal injury lawyer after any kind of accident. Even excellent drivers will likely experience an accident at least once in their lives. You need to protect yourself in all cases, whether the accident is the other driver’s fault, or your own. Having the right type of insurance coverage is just one of the many ways you can keep yourself protected.

Another way is to speak to an attorney as soon as possible after you have an accident. Traffic accidents, whether they involve cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, e-bikes or e-scooters, usually trigger a confusing and complex domino effect of legal considerations, from civil to criminal. Having an attorney by your side who understands everything you could be facing is very important to protecting yourself, your rights, and your future.

Something a practiced personal injury attorney can uncover that a crash victim might not, is the potential of a defective product contributing to their injuries, raising the issue of product liability. For instance, airbags are a vital part of vehicle safety. They are designed to protect passengers during collisions. However, their deployment can sometimes lead to injuries. This raises questions about product liability. Who is responsible when an airbag causes harm? Understanding legal responsibility in these cases is crucial. It involves examining whether the airbag was defective or improperly deployed.

Despite their protective purpose, airbags can sometimes cause injuries during deployment. The rapid inflation and forceful release may lead to harm in certain situations. This is a critical consideration when assessing vehicle safety. Most of us have heard about the defective auto airbag scandal, in which vehicles’ airbags deployed incorrectly, often resulting in a spontaneous and overly-eruptive, shrapnel-filled deployment. This destructive explosion inside a moving vehicle—especially from an airbag deployed spontaneously rather than during an accident—has resulted in 27 deaths and more than 400 injuries as of mid-2024. 

Airbag-related injuries can include:

• Burns from the hot gases used in deployment
• Fractures, particularly in the arms or face
• Hearing damage due to the loud noise

Over 100 million of these defective airbags and their vehicles have been recalled worldwide.

Manufacturers, car owners, and even third-party suppliers can be held liable. Each party’s role in maintaining and producing airbags is scrutinized. Navigating these legal waters requires knowledge of vehicle safety standards, as well as understanding the complexities of insurance claims and personal injury lawsuits — another reason why having an experienced attorney in your corner can help lessen the stress and confusion.

When a car accident is caused, or made worse, by a defective product (such as an airbag), your personal injury case shifts significantly in your favor. No longer is it purely a negligence case. Now it becomes a case that is more focused on liability — a liability that often does not require “fault” to be found. This makes your case stronger and easier to prove, for a few reasons.

When arguing a strictly negligence-based case, the plaintiff’s attorney (yours) must satisfy certain legal tests. In short, your lawyer must prove the failure to exercise a duty of care (by the other driver, for example) which then causes you actual harm. But a strict liability case does not need to prove fault, such as when a defective product causes harm without anyone being directly negligent or careless. The case must simply prove that the product was defective when released, and then caused or contributed to an injury when used as intended. Whereas a pure negligence case often creates a complex human-versus-human scenario (i.e., Who was more at fault?), product liability cases place an injured human against, essentially, a defective product. 

This offers a much more direct line to legal remedy, as the legal shift places a larger responsibility on the defendants named in the case for producing and sending out a defective product. These defendants are usually companies representing the manufacturer of the parts and the cars, as well as the distributors and sellers of them.

Yes, airbags are one of these parts — and most cars have many of them. But so are tires and wheels, brake systems, steering and suspension components, seat belts, acceleration components and systems, fuel delivery systems… even the computer “brains” that all new cars have today can malfunction. With 30,000 individual parts found on most modern cars, the list of potentially defective ones is incredibly long.

If one of those tens of thousands of parts and pieces of a car fails when being used as intended, and that failure causes or contributes to your car accident and your injuries, you need a practiced legal team on your side. They will not only help you uncover this failure, but also navigate the implications of product liability with confidence and success, strengthening your case.

The last thing someone who suffered an accident needs to worry about while trying to heal and get their life back together is whether or not their case is being handled properly, and from every possible angle. At Sam & Ash Injury Law, we provide you with the kind of personal attention, integrity, practiced professionalism, and aggressive justice-seeking that you and your case deserves.

If you are in an accident, the best time to call us to protect your rights is as soon as possible. With a brief, no-cost consultation, we will offer you immediate guidance on your case. And, if you hire us, we will do everything we can to support and protect you throughout the entire process, all while working to get you What’s Right.

Sam & Ash Injury Law — Because You Deserve What’s Right.