Kia Being Sued After an ‘Experienced’ Technician in Arkansas Is Injured While Working on a Soul
An experienced Kia technician is suing the car company after he suffered serious injuries while working on a 2012 Soul. The technician claims he performed the same repair on other Kia vehicles, but this was the first time he sustained an injury.
The Kia technician claims in the lawsuit that a hidden sharp metal edge inside the Soul’s dashboard cut his wrist. The cut was deep enough to require surgery.
“The plaintiff was an experienced automotive technician who cut his wrist while working on the dashboard of a 2012 Kia Soul,” a press release stated. “The cut was three centimeters deep, and the technician needed surgery to repair a damaged tendon. A trustee for the technician’s estate joined this action as a plaintiff after the technician and his wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.”
He is now suing Kia, claiming strict liability and breach of implied warranties of fitness and merchantability. He also blames Kia for negligent failure to warn, manufacturing defect, and design defect.
What has the court said about the technician’s claims against Kia?
The federal district court for the Eastern District of Arkansas denied Kia’s claim that a Workers’ Compensation statute’s exclusive remedy provision barred the suit. The judge also denied summary judgment on Kia’s claim that the accident was due to the technician’s negligence.
On the other side of the argument, the court denied the technician’s warranty claims because he was not a consumer. It also denied his strict liability claims on the basis of his specialized knowledge. That meant, according to the court, that the sharp edge inside the Kia Soul was not unreasonably dangerous.
The case will go to trial, according to the court, because many factual questions still remain unresolved.
“The issue for the technician’s manufacturing defect claim was whether the part that injured him had an unusually sharp bracket that would suggest the manufacturer’s negligence,” the press release explained. “Experts for the car manufacturer and technician offered ‘conflicting proof’ whether there was a feasible alternative design that would have made the bracket less dangerous.”
