With More Than $100 Million at Stake, Dykema Proved Kia's Seat Belts Were Safe

After a two-month trial for a product liability case in the Superior Court of California, Orange County where the plaintiff sought more than $103M in damages, a jury deliberated for slightly more than 60 minutes before returning a 12-0 defense verdict in favor of Kia.

The plaintiff claimed that Kia knew about an alleged defect in the passenger side seatbelt system of a 2015 Kia Forte and argued that a failure in that system resulted in injury.

Dykema’s trial team argued the restraint systems met all applicable federal safety standards, explained the seat belts in the vehicle had locking mechanisms separate from pretensioners, and highlighted that 395,000 similar Kia vehicles are on the road—having traveled more than 6 billion miles in a year—but that none of them were involved in accidents where injuries were supposedly caused by lack of deployment of the seat belt pretensioners.

They also showed that the resulting injuries were not consistent with the plaintiff’s allegations of what caused the injury, further indicating that the seatbelt worked as expected.

Dykema Delivers Swift Jury Ruling For Kia, One of 2020's Top Defense Verdicts 

A jury ruled in favor of Kia Motors America, Kia Motors Corporation, and Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia in a product liability case seeking more than $87 million in damages in the Superior Court of Los Angeles.

The plaintiffs claimed that electronic faults in the Transmission Control Module of a 2016 KIA Optima caused the power steering assist to fail and malfunction, which contributed to or caused the vehicle to veer off a highway and crash.

Dykema called a human factors expert and several technical experts to defend against the claims. Our team demonstrated that the power steering system did not malfunction, and that driver distraction likely caused the crash.

After the 17-day trial, the jury only deliberated for 90 minutes before returning its verdict. Dykema’s defense in this case was recognized as one of the “Top Defense Verdicts of 2020” in California by the Los Angeles / San Francisco Daily Journal.

Dismissal of Class Action Leads to Positive Settlement and Major Kia Win

Dykema represented Kia Motors America Inc. and Kia Motors Corp. in a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals class action settlement victory after the firm successfully advocated for a petition for en banc review of a three-judge panel's split controversial decision in 2018, throwing out the nationwide class action settlement.

In an 8-3 majority decision, the en banc panel agreed with Dykema and reversed the earlier panel ruling, reinstating the trial court’s multi-district settlement of more than $200 million.

Dykema’s representation in this matter earned recognition from the Los Angeles / San Francisco Daily Journal as one of the top appellate reversals in California for 2019.