Lawsuit Over Death of West Virginia Teacher Claims Air Bag Was Defective

I have written articles before about air bags on cars and how a feature that is intended to save lives can sometimes malfunction and cause injury and even death.

The Legal Examiner recently reported on the tragic case of LaDonna Stewart, a woman from West Virginia who was killed in a car accident in 2011.

She was killed in West Columbia. According to police reports she was struck from behind in a four vehicle crash. She was ejected from her car and killed due to an alleged air bag defect, media reports stated.

The case led this year to a lawsuit against the manufacturer of her car, Ford Motor Company. Court documents stated Stewart, a primary school teacher, was wearing her seatbelt behind the wheel of a 2000 Ford Explorer XLT.

The lawsuit claimed that because the seatbelt and air bag didn’t work as the teacher expected, she was ejected upon impact and pronounced dead at the scene. Her husband is seeking more than $1.2 million in damages.

I have written before about many problems concerning air bags, including fake air bags on cars.

We also highlighted a problem on driver side airbags deploying without warning on Ford F150 2004 – 2006 models of truck, resulting in a recall.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute reported in 2000 that between 1997 and 2000, as many as three million vehicles were recalled due to air bag related problems.

If you are hurt by an air bag or another piece of defective equipment on a car contact our Virginia Beach car crash attorneys for a free consultation. Air bags generally improve driver safety but sad deaths such as Stewart’s suggest the manufacturers have a way to go. Contact our Virginia Beach defective product lawyers if you have been hurt by an air bag or as a result of the failure of an air bag to deploy.

The Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Hampton, VA personal injury law firm, Cooper Hurley, handles car, truck, and motorcycle injuries as well as brain injury, wrongful death, railroad workers’ injuries (FELA) mesothelioma and medical malpractice cases. Cooper Hurley represents people hurt in accidents in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout Virginia as well as in north eastern North Carolina. If you need help or advice about a serious injury, please call us at (757) 309-4711 or make an appointment to visit our Virginia Beach client meeting location at 200 South Kellam Rd, Suite #101, Virginia Beach, VA, 23462. For a free consultation with a specialized Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake or Hampton, VA personal injury lawyer contact us through this website. Our motto is: “Your Injury, Our Fight.”