Takata pleads guilty in air bag law suit; Lancaster family had already settled their case

It started with a truck hitting a cow, ended with a lawsuit settlement and ultimately a guilty plea.

All over faulty and illegal airbags just before Christmas in 2015.

Air bag maker Takata pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to lying about air bag defects that are linked to 11 deaths worldwide. One of the 11 people killed was Joel Knight of Lancaster County. He died when his truck hit a cow in 2015 in Lancaster County. Knight’s family settled a lawsuit against Takata in June 2016.

Terms of the settlement are sealed, court records show. All sides had to sign confidentiality agreements, said Drew Creech, a lawyer at Rock Hill’s Elrod Pope law firm who sued Takata on behalf of Knight’s wife and son.

The family of Knight, who was 52 when he died, filed a lawsuit against Takata and Ford, claiming debris from the air bag explosion killed him. The Knights alleged the metal cylinder inside the canister ruptured, shot out of the canister “like a bullet coming out of a rifle,” and hit Knight in the neck.

There is no dispute that the airbag, which was made of cheaper ammonium nitrate inflator was unsafe, Takata hid evidence, and Knight was one of 11 people who died, Creech said.

“His death led to the recall of thousands more vehicles that had the Takata air bags,” Creech said.

The recall is the largest in history. At least 180 injuries also have been linked to the airbags, Creech said.

Because of the earlier settlement, Knight’s family is not part of the $1 billion fine that Takata agreed to pay as part of Monday’s guilty plea or the federal class action civil lawsuits against Takata and automakers, Creech said.

In a statement Monday after the guilty plea, U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Blanco was just as blunt: “For over a decade, Takata lied to its customers about the safety and reliability of its ammonium nitrate-based airbag inflators.”

The $1 billion fine against Takata will send most of the money to automakers who bought the product but less than $150 million to the people who had injuries, according to an Associated Press report.

“That amount is not close to what is compensation those people deserve,” Creech said.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Takata pleads guilty in air bag law suit; Lancaster family had already settled their case."