Takata Airbag Recall Sparks Class Action Lawsuit Against Car Manufacturers
Toyota, Honda, and Mazda are among the car manufacturers caught in a class-action lawsuit over the defective Takata airbag scandal. The move to replace the faulty airbags of 100 million vehicles is the biggest recall in automotive history.
The open class action will be filed in Australia by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart and Sullivan against the nation's largest car manufacturers. The suit alleges that the manufacturers are in breach of a number of provisions under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) and will be filed in the Federal Court of Australia.
According to a partner at Quinn Emanuel, Damian Scattini, it is "outrageous and almost inconceivable" that there are over a million cars on Australian roads that have a so-called safety device that can explode at any moment. Scattini added that the people driving these cars are exercising their consumer rights before there are any more tragedies.
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The defective Takata airbags have been liked to 18 deaths worldwide. A three-month investigation into the recall revealed that so far, two-thirds of the recalled vehicles in Australia have yet to be replaced with new airbags. But even more troubling is that the investigation discovered that a number of manufacturers such as BMW, Toyota, Mazda, Lexus and Subaru, were replacing the faulty airbags with the same dangerous airbags.
The source of the problem was traced to the ammonium nitrate contained in the airbags' inflators. The compound has been found to grow volatile with age when exposed to changing temperatures, humidity and moisture.
This could cause them to explode and send dangerous shrapnel to unsuspecting drivers and passengers. Just recently, a 58-year old man in Sydney was struck in the neck by an object believed to have come from the airbag.
This was Australia's first recorded fatality caused by a defective Takata airbag. So far, over 50 car models from as far back as 1999 have been recalled in Australia. Takata has issued a formal apology and urged drivers to check whether their vehicles are under recall.
