New Theories of Liability Against Vehicle Manufacturers Based on Advanced Safety Features
Could manufacturers or companies have a duty to equip their vehicles with technology that overrides or interferes with a driver’s control? Two new cases present competing viewpoints and indicate that plaintiffs may begin to argue manufacturers and trucking companies have a duty to equip their vehicles with technology that displaces a driver’s decision-making, such as lane departure warnings, lane keep assist, and collision avoidance systems.
In Berkoski v. Honda, the plaintiff sued Honda, alleging that a 2016 Honda CR-V that drifted across the center line of a two-lane road and collided head-on with another vehicle was defective because it was not equipped with a lane departure warning (“LDW”) and/or lane keep assist (“LKA”) systems. The plaintiff argued that these options were available in higher-end models of the CR-V, but should have been standard features in all Honda vehicles. The plaintiff argued that if the car had these features, the accident could have been avoided.
Ultimately, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed summary judgment for the automaker, concluding that a 2016 CR V that lacked lane departure warning and lane keeping assist was “reasonably safe” as a matter of law and that, at the time, safe operation was still understood to depend on the driver’s diligence in steering, speed, and braking. The court also flagged various gaps in evidence that the systems would have been activated under these circumstances or would have actually averted the crash.
However, by contrast, in Ortiz v. Daimler Truck, the California Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for a truck manufacturer, holding that triable issues existed on counts of strict liability and negligent design for failing to include a collision avoidance system in some, but not all, of its trucks. Specifically, the case raised the question of whether Daimler could be held liable because some of its trucks contained a collision avoidance system that would warn drivers when it detects a risk of collision and can apply supplemental braking for the driver to avoid or mitigate a potential crash, but other trucks did not. Customers had the option to include such safety features in their purchase orders, but such features were not automatically included in all trucks. The court found that Daimler had a duty supported by public policy factors and rejected the notion that a customer’s order specifications or a purchase contract could immunize a manufacturer from products liability. As a result, the matter was allowed to proceed to the jury on the question of Daimler’s liability for not including the collision avoidance system in all trucks.
Although out-of-state authorities are not binding precedent, these cases illuminate how courts may evaluate the omission of available safety technology. Berkoski offers a defense-oriented argument against a manufacturer’s duty to implement these types of safety features in vehicles as a matter of course. This argument emphasizes the fact that drivers are ultimately responsible for the control of their own vehicles, and the plaintiff bears the burden to establish that the absence of certain safety features proximately caused the harm, particularly whether the system would have been activated and effective in the circumstances. Ortiz, on the other hand, arms plaintiffs with persuasive authority that an omission of widely available collision mitigation technology is a question of fact regarding the existence of a duty of care under a strict liability and negligent defect theory. Moreover, it holds that intervening driver negligence may be foreseeable and not necessarily a superseding cause at the summary judgment stage, and that manufacturers cannot sidestep tort duties via customer optioning or buyer contract terms.
Written by Catherine E. Donnelly, Esq.
