— An ARC airbag class action lawsuit alleges tens of millions of defective airbags are installed in vehicles manufactured by several automakers. allegedly placing car occupants at risk of injuries and deaths.
The defendants include ARC Automotive, Audi, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Joyson Safety Systems and Toyoda Gosei North America.
According to the ARC lawsuit, the airbags contain toroidal stored gas hybrid airbag inflators manufactured by ARC Automotive since 2001. The inflators contain ammonium nitrate as the propellant, the same chemical that caused recalls of millions of vehicles equipped with Takata airbags.
The plaintiffs who sued allege the ammonium nitrate is an unstable volatile chemical that causes the ARC airbag inflators to explode and shoot metal fragments into occupants.
Class action lawsuit documents assert there have been at least seven ARC airbag inflator ruptures, six that occurred on the driver-side and one on the passenger-side. The plaintiffs say two of those driver airbag explosions caused fatalities, and at least two passenger inflators ruptured during internal testing by ARC.
The automakers which use the ARC airbags allegedly should have known the products were defective, and the plaintiffs claim even when recalls were issued those recalls didn't include all the affected vehicles.
According to the ARC airbag lawsuit, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating ARC’s toroidal stored gas hybrid inflators. The plaintiffs argue they didn't know they were purchasing vehicles with airbags that could kill them instead of protect them.
In addition, the plaintiffs also allege they overpaid for their vehicles due to misconduct and fraudulent concealment.
The ARC airbag class action lawsuit was filed by these plaintiffs.
- John Britton / California / 2016 and 2017 Ford F-150
- Eva Jacinto / California / 2016 Audi A3
- Celeste Felice / Florida / 2016 GMC Acadia
- Francine Lewis / New York / 2019 Volkswagen Jetta
- Matthew Kakol / New York / 2017 Ford Mustang
The ARC airbag lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California: Britton, et al., v. ARC Automotive, Inc., et al.
The plaintiffs are represented by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP, Levin, Papantonio, Rafferty, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr & Mougey, P.A., Newsome Melton, P.A., and The Davenport Law Firm, LLC.