When it installed Takata’s airbags, it said in a statement, “Honda reasonably believed,
based on extensive test results provided by Takata, that they were safe.”
Honda said it believed it reacted “promptly and appropriately” in handling known airbag defects.
At least four automakers knew for years that Takata’s airbags were dangerous and could rupture violently
but continued to use those airbags in their vehicles to save on costs, lawyers representing victims of the defect asserted in a court document filed on Monday.
But the fresh allegations against Ford, Honda, Nissan
and Toyota, made as part of a class-action lawsuit in Florida and based on company documents, point to a far deeper involvement by automakers that used Takata’s defective airbags for years.
Toyota used Takata’s airbags “primarily” for cost reasons, even though the automaker had “large quality concerns” about Takata
and considered the supplier’s quality performance “unacceptable,” the filing said.
The filing by the plaintiffs says emails and internal documents turned over by Honda show
that in 1999 and 2000, the automaker was intimately involved in developing a problematic propellant, or explosive, used in Takata’s airbags.
Randi Johnston, 26, of Farmington, Utah — who was injured in September 2015 when the airbag in her 2003 Honda Civic ruptured
and metal shards struck her throat — attended the hearing and said afterward that she was shocked by the judge’s decision.
Honda chose Takata’s airbags because of their relative “inexpensiveness,” the filing quoted Honda documents as saying.
