The Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi Motors, an ally of Renault and Nissan, announced this Thursday that it had been ordered in the United States to pay one billion dollars in damages in a road accident case involving one of its vehicles. . Mitsubishi Motors clarified in a press release that it did not accept this judgment concerning its North American subsidiary, which plans to appeal.
While it is not uncommon to see damages exceeding a million dollars in traffic accident cases in the United States, the amount awarded in this case is particularly high, without however being a record. This trial initiated in 2018 related to a road accident that occurred the previous year in Pennsylvania (north-eastern United States).
A seat belt defect
Francis Amagasu, who was driving a Mitsubishi 3.000 GT, lost control of his sports car while trying to overtake a vehicle in front of him. The accident left him quadriplegic. A Philadelphia court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, the wife of Francis Amagasu, who claimed that her husband’s serious injuries were caused by a malfunction in his seat belt, and that therefore the vehicle manufacturer should be liable responsible.
Mitsubishi Motors “disputes the complainant’s assertion that the vehicle was defective,” the manufacturer further reacted in its press release. The judgment, rendered Monday and notified to Mitsubishi Motors on Wednesday, confirms the decision of a popular jury of the same court last October, which ordered similar damages.
Up to $1.7 billion
As the manufacturer plans to appeal, the impact of this conviction on its future financial results is still “uncertain”, he added. This clarification did not prevent its action from falling by 4.4% on Thursday at the mid-session break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, going against the upward trend of the market.
In 2022, the American manufacturer Ford was ordered to pay $1.7 billion in damages for a manufacturing defect in one of its models which led to the death of a couple in Georgia (southern United States). ) in a road accident in 2014.
