Abstract
The products’ liability is an extremely important issue in our lives. It assures not only the perfect operation of the commodities we have bought but it also can save lives or keep people from injuries. In this essay it is represented a short overview of the legislation that arranges the matter and definitely appoints who is responsible in such cases. The Product Liability Law points the chain of responsibility starting with the producer of the given commodity, going through the suppliers and whole sale merchants until it ends with the retailer. There are many examples of product recall in the automotive industry during the last decades like the Toyota and GM recalls but only the case of Takata Corp., researched in this paper, has an unusual reaction on the part of the supplier who bears the basic responsibility since his product is defective. Nevertheless that the case with the defected airbags that spread over eight million cars was not the first violation of the rules, the behavior of Mr. Takata did not show his will to compensate the distressed clients.
Key words: Takata, product liability, legislation, cases
Products that are defective and respectively become dangerous cause a large number of injuries any time not only in the United States but all over the world. In the United States the Product Liability Law contains the legal rules according to which it can be determined who is responsible for the defective products. The Product Liability Law differs from the common injury law, and its rules help the injured person to claim and recover damages.
Products liability addresses the liability of one or all shareholders along the circle of the production of any commodity for damage inflicted by this product. This comprises the producer of component parts (the first of the chain), the producer who carries out the assembly, the wholesaler, and the owner of the retail store (the last of the chain). Commodities that contain peculiar defects and because of them injure the consumer of the commodity, or a third party who borrowed the product, it was given to him/her, etc., are the subjects of suits related to their product liability. While products are commonly considered as tangible personal property, the concept products liability has included in this definition intangible product as gas, naturals as pets, immovability as houses and writings as guiding maps, etc.
The claims about products liability can use grounds as negligence, breach of warranty or strict liability. This depends on the jurisdiction in the borders of which the claim is filed. Many states have enacted statutes based on the comprehensive liability. The United States Department of Commerce has accepted and published a Model Uniform Products Liability Act (MUPLA) that can be used by all states on a voluntary basis. A federal products liability law is not adopted and promulgated.
Products Liability is qualified as a strict liability violation. The violation of strict liability does not depend on the defendant’s carefulness. According to the terms of products liability, a defendant is liable in cases when it is proved that the product is faulty. Nevertheless that the producer or the supplier has exercised great care, it will be irrelevant to the claim and they will be held liable for the defected product that has caused proven harm.
The statutes of the Products liability law can be found mostly in the common law and in the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Article 2 of the UCC relates mainly to the sales of goods and it is adopted by almost all the states. The paragraph states:
“Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose.”1
The merits for claims based on the products liability is derived mainly from Torts law. (See Torts and Personal Injury).
For the application of strict liability, the supplier must have sold the product in the regular procedure and way typical for his business. There have been always claims against producers of defected product but the most spectacular and affecting lots of people are the recall cases in the automotive industry.
1 – Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2, par. 214(c) that states that the goods: “are fit for the ordinary purposes for which goods of that description are used;”
par. 2-315. - Implied Warranty: Fitness for Particular Purpose
The case of Mr. Takata, a producer and supplier of seat bells and airbags for automotive industry caused the recall of about 8 million vehicles in the United States. As CNN money reported on December 2, 2014: that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) fixed a time till midnight in which time Takata from Takata Corp., had to issue a nationwide recall on the territory of the United States but the company met the deadline without taking action.2 The recall has been restricted till now to a selected states. Takata could be fined to $35 million if he does not concede. Mr. Tanaka answered through his spokesman Toyohiro Hishikawa that the recall should be called by the manufacturers and not the suppliers. Further he explained that it was not up to them to manage the recall, but he promised that the company will cooperate once the producers decide to recall.3 He also added that he was surprised with the fact that NHTSA imposes fines over suppliers.
CNN reporter Chris Isidore narrated that when the police arrived in Sptember 2013 to the scene of a car accident that happened in Alhambra, California, they got the impression that the driver of the car, Hai Ming Xu, was shot in the face. Police in Orlando, investigating an accident one year later, came to the same conclusion. They assumed that the driver, Hien Thi Tran, had been stabbed and that might have been the reason of the accident.4
2 – Riley, Charles, Embattled auto parts supplier Takata has defied U.S. regulators, ignoring a key deadline to expand its recall of airbags that may contain a fatal flaw, Dec. 3, 2014, CNN Money, Web,
3 – Ibid
4 – Isidore, Chris, Takata airbag victims looked like they had been shot or stabbed, Nov. 20, 2014, CNN Money, Web
What actually killed the two drivers was the airbags produced by Takata Corp. - the devices installed in their cars as a protection. The police reports and the data included in the lawsuits indicated the fact that these airbags exploded with such might that they sent plastic and metal pieces as shrapnel dashing into the car's drivers causing fatal wounds to Xu and Tran.
Approximately eight million of those airbags are on recall by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The cars affected by the airbags installment are produced by ten various auto-manufacturers and about five million of them were the models Honda and Acura. 5
Berger and Montague, attorneys at law, wrote in their website that they had filed numerous claims against Takata Corp., based on the documents issued by NHTSA which indicated that the airbags, produced and delivered by Takata Corp. may break apart, explode or burst, and bring about serious injuries to the passengers in the car.6
As the defective airbags, produced by the Japanese producer Takata, were recalled and the hearsay spread through the country, meanwhile the number of the dead and injured has increase significantly, the company was pressed additionally to take the proper responsibility for its defective products.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, tried to compel a Takata executive to open and organize a compensation fund directed to the victims as General Motors established due to their ignition switch recall.
5 – Ibid
6 - Berger & Montague, P. C., Takata Airbags Products Liability Litigation, Case Number: 2:14-CV-6391, Web
The answer came with a letter to Mr. Blumenthal and it was ‘no’. They wrote they believe that such a fund is not recently necessary. The vice president Kevin Kennedy wrote that they will examine and consider the issue and if they change their opinion the Senator will be informed.7 Nevertheless Takata had admitted the fact that the airbags showed that they were defective in the meaning of the law, they went on fighting the litigation dealing with personal injury.
The case with the defective airbags was not the first case he had problems with the product liability of his products. On April 15, 1999, Natasha Pendergrass (Natasha), then she was sixteen, was driving her ten years old sister Jessica Russo (Jessica) to school with her mother's 1996 Geo Tracker. While traveling on Highway 385 near Hill City, South Dakota, they had a car accident in which their car went out of the road and turned three times down a steep slope until it stopped at a tree. Natasha was not injured, but Jessica was pushed out of the tracker and “pinned” under it. She was injured. The investigation proved that it happened because of the defective seat belts. The legal representative of Jessica filed a suit. There was a big dispute in which the Takata’s attorney tried to prove that the two girls did not handle the seat belts properly before they started and therefore they were not fastened properly. The decision of the jury was discharged because one of the jurors had made a Google research and influenced the whole jury sharing the results of it.8
7 – Ivory, Daniel and Tabushi, Hiroko, Takata Says No to Fund for Victims of Defective Airbag, NY Times, July 9, 2015
8 - Russo v. Takata Corp., 2009 SD 83, South Dakota Supreme Court
Bibliography
Berger & Montague, P. C., Takata Airbags Products Liability Litigation, Case Number: 2:14-CV-6391, Web (accessed March 1, 2016)
Isidore, Chris, Takata airbag victims looked like they had been shot or stabbed, Nov. 20, 2014, CNN Money, Web (accessed March 1, 2016)
Ivory, Daniel and Tabushi, Hiroko, Takata Says No to Fund for Victims of Defective Airbag, NY Times, July 9, 2015, Web (accessed March 1, 2016)
Riley, Charles, Embattled auto parts supplier Takata has defied U.S. regulators, ignoring a key deadline to expand its recall of airbags that may contain a fatal flaw, Dec. 3, 2014, CNN Money, Web, (accessed March 1, 2016)
Russo v. Takata Corp., 2009 SD 83, South Dakota Supreme Court
Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2, par. 214(c), par. 215
