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Airbags are designed to reduce injuries and protect drivers in the event of accidents. Unfortunately, if an airbag is not manufactured or installed properly in a vehicle, it can do more harm than good. In that case, you may be able to sue the airbag’s manufacturer.
Airbags deploy very quickly, and they can sometimes cause minor injuries to drivers. However, when an airbag is manufactured incorrectly, it may deploy too quickly or not at all, and the driver may be severely injured. Faulty airbags may leave a driver susceptible to injury in an accident or cause serious facial fractures if they deploy too quickly or with excessive force. If the airbag was made in a way that left it unsafe, the manufacturer should be held responsible.
Contact our Indiana car accident attorneys for a free, private case review by calling Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.
To prove that the airbag was faulty, we need to thoroughly investigate the accident and your vehicle, possibly with help from experts.
Your vehicle should be inspected, especially the airbag. Automotive professionals may be able to determine whether the airbag was defective, installed incorrectly, or whether something else about the car caused it to deploy incorrectly.
Again, the vehicle should be inspected by automotive experts. Those experts may be able to present their findings in court as expert witnesses. They can explain how they inspected the vehicle and whether they believe the airbag was defective.
We may also have your injuries evaluated by medical experts. They may be able to explain whether your injuries are consistent with airbag injuries. This is a crucial step, as the airbag manufacturer may be held liable only for the enhanced injuries caused by the defective airbag, not necessarily for all injuries sustained in the accident.
Airbags are crucial safety devices in vehicles, and the automotive industry heavily regulates how they may be produced and installed. Our Indianapolis, IN car accident lawyers must examine these standards and regulations and compare them to how the airbag was actually manufactured and installed. If the manufacturer did not adhere to crucial safety regulations, they may be held liable.
Your accident is likely covered by auto insurance, and you can file a claim to get compensation. However, claims involving defective airbags can be complicated. If you file an insurance claim with the at-fault driver’s liability coverage, they will only pay the damages that the other driver is at fault for, which likely does not include enhanced injuries caused by a defective airbag. It may be best to take these claims to court.
The key to suing for a faulty airbag is separating the injuries caused by the airbag from the other injuries in the accident.
A defective airbag likely did not cause the accident. The accident happened as a direct result of another driver’s negligence. As such, the other driver may be liable for most of the primary injuries from the accident.
Many injuries might have nothing to do with the airbag. For example, cuts on your arms from the broken glass in the crash might have very little to do with whether the airbag was defective.
The airbag’s manufacturer may be held liable for enhanced injuries, which are injuries caused or made worse by the defective airbag rather than caused by the crash itself. As such, we must carefully separate enhanced injuries from all other injuries.
An enhanced injury might be facial fractures caused by an airbag that deployed with too much force. These injuries likely would not have occurred or would have been less severe if the airbag had not been defective.
Injuries from the crash and enhanced injuries from defective airbags often overlap. The crash might cause whiplash, but the airbag might significantly worsen the injury, and it may be difficult to determine how much of the injury should be blamed on the other driver and the airbag manufacturer.
Experts may be necessary in these situations. Accident reconstruction experts and medical experts can provide valuable insight into the injuries and how they were caused.
Airbags should be installed in a car when you buy it, but if you were previously in an accident or purchased a pre-owned car, the airbags may have been replaced.
If the airbags in your accident are original to the vehicle, we may sue the vehicle manufacturer for your injuries. We should review your vehicle's history to determine whether the airbags are original or have been replaced.
Aftermarket car parts are parts purchased and installed after the vehicle owner buys the car. They may be manufactured by the original manufacturer or by an entirely different company. If you replaced the airbags with aftermarket parts, we need to know who the manufacturer is.
Sometimes, aftermarket airbags are manufactured perfectly fine. However, when they are installed, something goes wrong. In such a case, the person who installed the airbag may be held responsible for your injuries. We may know whether the airbags were installed incorrectly when we have your vehicle inspected.
It is somewhat common for car accident plaintiffs to share a small amount of fault for a crash. However, this usually does not stop the plaintiff from suing.
If you are deemed partially responsible, the court may apply a modified comparative negligence rule. In short, your damages may be reduced according to your share of fault, usually expressed as a percentage. However, if you are more than 50% responsible for the accident, you may be barred from recovering damages from the other driver.
Even if you did something negligent to contribute to the crash, your actions might have no bearing on the airbags.
Airbags are supposed to reduce injuries in an accident. Even if you are fully responsible for the accident, the airbags should still deploy to protect you. If the airbags fail, the manufacturer should be held responsible for your enhanced injuries, even if you are responsible for all other injuries.
Contact our South Bend, IN car accident attorneys for a free, private case review by calling Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
Contact Us:
Wruck Paupore P.C.
Injury Lawyers
275 Joliet St. Suite #250
Dyer, IN 46311
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