Ford Motor Co. and Yaklin Ford in Richwood, Texas, are being sued in Texas for not replacing a recalled airbag that led to a woman sustaining life-altering injuries.
The suit, filed by plaintiff Sara Morgan in Brazoria County near Houston, claims Morgan was involved in a collision in June 2020 in Brazoria County while riding as a passenger in a 2007 Ford Mustang. Following the collision, the Mustang’s Takata airbag “expelled metal shrapnel” into Morgan’s face and caused severe injuries, including the loss of her left eye.
Ford recalled more than 58,000 vehicles, including the 2007 Mustang, in June 2014 following reports that the Takata airbag inside the vehicle could expel shrapnel into the cabin. The Takata recall has spread throughout the global auto industry for more than a decade and is largest automotive recall in history, with more than 67 million affected airbags in the U.S. across various automakers. Nineteen 19 deaths and more than 400 injuries have been linked to the defect.
Japan’s Takata Corp. filed for bankruptcy in June 2017 and was purchased the following year for $1.6 billion by supplier Joyson Safety Systems, which was then known as Key Safety Systems.
The Mustang involved in Morgan’s accident was taken into Yaklin Ford in October 2018 to have two recalls performed on the airbag inflators. However, the lawsuit alleges that Yaklin Ford “only replaced the driver’s-side airbag inflator” and knowingly left the passenger-side inflator intact.
The lawsuit contends Yaklin Ford was responsible for not replacing the airbag inflator, but Ford also was responsible for Morgan’s injuries because “a recall is not an adequate substitute for a safe vehicle” and Ford has “an absolute obligation to provide consumers with a vehicle that was reasonably safe in crashes.”