The Crashworthiness Doctrine and Airbag Failures

The Crashworthiness Doctrine and Airbag Failures

You were in a Mississippi car accident, but your injuries seem far worse than the impact should have caused. Lacerations, facial fractures, dental and eye injuries. These may not be from the accident itself — they may be from a defective airbag.

When an airbag fails to deploy, deploys late, or inflates with dangerous force, it can turn a survivable collision into something far more damaging. That added harm is what the law calls an "enhanced injury." Under the crashworthiness doctrine, the car maker's responsibility isn't for the crash — it's for the safety system that failed you during it.

A Mississippi defective airbag lawyer can review your case, determine how the Mississippi product liability laws apply to your situation, and help you file a claim under the Mississippi Products Liability Act (MPLA). If a defective product made a bad car accident worse, Mississippi law gives injured people a path forward.

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Key Takeaways for Airbag Defect Claims in Mississippi

• The crashworthiness doctrine allows injured people to hold manufacturers liable for injuries made worse by a defective safety system, even if the manufacturer did not cause the accident.
• Mississippi’s MPLA governs all product liability claims in the state, including those involving defective airbags.
• Enhanced injury claims focus on the gap between what the injuries would have been in a properly working vehicle and what they actually were because of the defect.
• Warm, humid conditions across Mississippi can accelerate degradation in certain airbag inflators, such as those involved in the Takata recall.
• An experienced product liability attorney in Mississippi can coordinate the technical evidence needed to build a strong crashworthiness claim and identify every responsible party.

What Is the Crashworthiness Doctrine?

The crashworthiness doctrine holds vehicle manufacturers responsible for injuries that a vehicle’s design made worse during a crash, even if the manufacturer did not cause the accident itself.

This legal principle traces back to the landmark federal case Larsen v. General Motors Corp. In that landmark 1968 case, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that car manufacturers have a legal duty to design vehicles that reduce the risk of injury during collisions.

The court recognized what it called the “second collision.” The first collision is the crash itself. The second collision occurs when the occupant strikes the vehicle's interior or is injured by a safety system failure. The manufacturer can be liable for injuries that resulted from the second collision.

Every jurisdiction in the country has now adopted this principle. In Mississippi, crashworthiness claims fall under the Mississippi Product Liability Act (Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-63), which governs all product liability actions in the state.

How Does an Airbag Failure Lead to an Enhanced Injury Claim?

An enhanced injury claim targets the additional injuries caused by a defective safety feature. The focus is not on who caused the crash. Instead, it asks: Did the airbag defect make the injuries worse than they should have been?

This distinction is critical. In a standard car accident case, you file a claim against the driver who caused the wreck. In an enhanced injury case, you file a product liability claim against the manufacturer whose defective product made your injuries more severe.

There are several ways an airbag can fail during a collision. Common defective airbag scenarios include:

• The airbag fails to deploy at all during a qualifying impact.
• The airbag deploys late, after the occupant has already struck the steering wheel or dashboard.
• The airbag deploys with too much force, causing facial fractures, burns, or neck injuries.
• The airbag deploys at low speed when it should not have activated.

In each of these situations, the injured person may recover compensation for the difference between what would have happened in a properly functioning vehicle and what actually happened because of the defect. A Mississippi defective airbag lawyer can build a case to demonstrate how your injuries were caused or worsened by the defective part.

Can You Sue a Car Company for Faulty Airbags in Mississippi?

Yes. Under the MPLA, a person injured by a defective airbag can file a product liability claim against the manufacturer, designer, or seller of the vehicle or airbag component. The claimant must prove that the product was defective when it left the manufacturer’s control.

Mississippi law recognizes three categories of product defects:

• Manufacturing defects, where the product deviates from the manufacturer’s own specifications
• Design defects, where the product’s design is unreasonably dangerous even when made correctly
• Failure-to-warn defects, where the manufacturer did not provide adequate warnings about known dangers

For design defect claims, the MPLA requires proof that a feasible design alternative existed that would have likely prevented the harm without reducing the product’s usefulness. This is a key requirement in many defective product cases in Mississippi.

What Factors Affect Crashworthiness in an Airbag Case?

Several factors determine whether a vehicle’s airbag system meets crashworthiness standards. Courts and attorneys evaluate these elements when building an enhanced injury claim.

Airbag Sensor Calibration

Sensors must accurately detect the force and direction of a collision. If sensors are miscalibrated, the airbag may fail to deploy or deploy at the wrong time.

Inflator Design and Chemical Stability

The inflator is the mechanism that fills the airbag. Defective inflators can rupture, underinflate, or deploy with excessive force. The Takata airbag recall is the most well-known example. 

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 67 million Takata airbags have been recalled in the U.S. because their inflators can rupture and send metal fragments into the vehicle cabin, injuring and killing dozens of people. 

Compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

NHTSA sets minimum performance standards for airbag systems under the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). A vehicle that fails to meet these standards may be considered defective. However, meeting federal standards does not automatically shield a manufacturer from liability under Mississippi law. A design can still be unreasonably dangerous even if it passes minimum federal requirements.

Crash Type and Severity

The type of collision matters. Frontal airbags are designed for head-on and near-head-on impacts. Side curtain airbags protect during T-bone crashes and rollovers. If an airbag fails to deploy in the type of collision it was built for, that failure supports a crashworthiness claim.

How Does the Takata Airbag Recall Relate to Crashworthiness Claims?

The Takata airbag recall is the largest automotive safety recall in U.S. history. NHTSA reports that at least 28 confirmed deaths in the United States and hundreds of injuries are tied to defective Takata inflators. The recall affects vehicles from more than 19 automakers.

Takata used ammonium nitrate as a propellant in its inflators. Over time, exposure to heat and humidity caused the chemical compound to degrade. When these airbags deployed, the inflator housing could rupture and spray metal shrapnel into the cabin.

Mississippi’s warm, humid climate makes this defect particularly dangerous for drivers. Vehicles in Jackson, Hattiesburg, Meridian, and the Gulf Coast region are more prone to inflator degradation due to sustained exposure to heat and moisture.

A Takata airbag recall lawsuit can fall under the crashworthiness doctrine if the defective inflator caused injuries beyond what the crash itself would have produced. These cases often involve both design defect and failure-to-warn theories.

Drivers in Mississippi can check whether their vehicle is affected by entering their Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) on the NHTSA recall lookup page. Millions of recalled airbags remain unrepaired nationwide, and many are still on the road in Mississippi.

Who Can Be Held Liable in a Defective Airbag Lawsuit?

Product liability claims for airbag defects can name multiple parties. Depending on the facts, liability may extend to:

• The vehicle manufacturer that selected and installed the airbag system
• The airbag component manufacturer (such as the company that made the inflator)
• A parts supplier or distributor in the chain of distribution

Under the MPLA, the manufacturer bears primary responsibility. Mississippi’s “innocent seller” provision (Miss. Code Ann. § 11-1-63(h)) may shield certain downstream sellers if they did not know about the defect and did not substantially alter the product.

In cases involving a widely known defect, such as the Takata inflator, the chain of liability can be broad. However, in many airbag cases, the claim centers on the airbag component maker and the vehicle manufacturer that chose to install the system.

What Must Be Proven in a Mississippi Defective Airbag Case?

To prevail on a defective airbag claim under the MPLA, the claimant generally must show:

• The airbag or airbag component was defective when it left the manufacturer’s control.
• The defect is what caused or worsened the injuries. 
• The claimant was using the vehicle in a foreseeable way at the time of the crash.

For enhanced injury claims, there is the additional burden of distinguishing the injuries caused by the initial collision from those caused by the airbag defect. The manufacturer is only responsible for the additional harm, not the injuries from the accident itself.

This separation of injuries can be difficult. It often requires testimony from medical professionals, crash reconstruction analysts, and automotive engineers. Courts in Mississippi and across the country have held that the burden of proving how to divide the injuries typically falls on the manufacturer, not the injured person.

In practice, this means the manufacturer must demonstrate which injuries were caused by the crash alone and which were caused by the defect. If the manufacturer cannot make that distinction, it may be held responsible for the full scope of the enhanced injuries.

This is one of the reasons why working with an experienced attorney matters in crashworthiness cases. The technical and medical evidence required to support these claims is substantial.

FAQs About Defective Airbag Claims in Mississippi

Talk to a Mississippi Product Liability Attorney

If a defective airbag made your crash injuries worse, you have a right to seek answers and pursue a claim. Richard Schwartz & Associates Injury Lawyers, P.A. represents injured people throughout Mississippi in product liability cases, including those involving airbag failures and the crashworthiness doctrine. Contact the firm online or call for a free consultation today 

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