Takata Defect Cover Up Litigation – Woman Paralyzed
February, 2016
The NY Times reports:
“JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — As the safety crisis surrounding Takata’s airbags that are prone to rupture has mushroomed, the Japanese auto supplier has insisted that the propellant in its airbags is safe.
But on Friday, testimony in a Florida court showed that Takata’s own engineers discarded evidence that may have shown otherwise as long as 16 years ago. As early as 2000, around the time the propellant, which includes a compound called ammonium nitrate, was introduced into Takata models, failures occurred during internal testing.
But Takata altered its test data to hide the failures from its biggest customer, Honda, and a senior Takata executive ordered some of the evidence be discarded, the testimony said….”
Judge James H. Daniel of Duval County Court agreed with Takata that there was not enough evidence linking Takata’s actions directly with Ms. Mincey’s accident and injuries. But he said he was open to considering more evidence, which Mr. Leopold said he would provide.
Still, safety advocates found it disturbing that Takata might have known about potential problems years ago, but not immediately reported them to customers, automakers and safety regulators.
“It’s very damning,” said Rosemary Shahan, founder of Consumers for Auto Reliability.
“It’s bad enough to have a faulty product, it’s even worse to cover it up.” See
