Personal Injuries and Wrongful Deaths Caused by Vehicle Defects

Your vehicle is a significant investment, and manufacturers are expected to provide their customers with quality products. Safety is a key concern regarding cars, trucks and SUVs coming off the assembly line, from the brakes and tires to airbags designed to save your life. When manufacturer defects occur, it can result in devastating injuries and deaths for drivers and their passengers. When this happens, victims have the right to pursue an auto product liability lawsuit to recover losses caused by vehicle defects.

What Is Auto Product Liability?

Like all products, vehicles are expected to be safe when used as designed. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Every year there are thousands upon thousands of recalls on vehicle components, usually due to many people encountering injuries, many of them fatal. When a tire suddenly falls apart or an oil crankcase explodes, it can be deadly to occupants in the vehicle. Often it takes hundreds or even thousands of people to be injured before a vehicle component is recalled. This is when an auto liability lawsuit may be an option.

Auto product liability cases often start with an accident that may or may not have been caused by a component failure. If you are in a crash, you are expecting your vehicle to provide some protection. When your seatbelt or airbag fails, or your roof collapses when it rolls, these could be vehicle defects that contributed to your injuries. It takes a talented auto product liability lawyer to investigate your claim and create a legal case to prove the vehicle manufacturer is liable for injuries caused by the vehicle defect.

Common Types of Auto Product Liability Cases

Over the years, thousands of different vehicle defects have taken many lives and caused serious harm. Both the vehicle and component manufacturers can be liable for defective parts. For example, a few decades ago, the combination of certain vehicles with defective tires was deadly, killing hundreds of people in the 1990s. Both Ford and Firestone/Bridgestone were sued by hundreds of victims and their families for auto product liability claims.

Safety features are at the forefront of most auto product liability cases. Some of the most notable personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involved the following vehicle defects:

• Tire separation and failure
• Airbag malfunction
• Seatbelt malfunction
• Fuel-fed fires
• Roof crush
• Rollover defects
• Door latch failures
• Poor crashworthiness

These types of lawsuits are very complex and require extensive legal research. However, they can be valuable to victims seriously injured due to poor-quality vehicles or families that lost a loved one in a defective vehicle crash.

If you believe a defective vehicle or auto component caused an injury or death in your family, you need an experienced legal team on your side. To discuss your auto product liability claim, contact our team at Conley Griggs Partin LLP. Call our office in Atlanta or South Georgia for a free legal consultation.