The family of Dr. Amber Martinez, who was killed in 2022 by her car’s faulty airbag, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Honda, claiming the vehicle manufacturer did not do enough to recall the affected cars in the Cayman Islands.
A wide range of models of Honda and other manufacturers’ cars fitted with airbags made by the now defunct Takata Corporation has been subject to an international recall for several years.
An inquest in Cayman last year heard from a forensic pathologist that a piece of metal from the defective Takata airbag in her 2008 Honda Fit had shot into the throat of the 29-year-old doctor “like a bullet”.
Martinez had graduated medical school earlier that year and was just beginning her career as a doctor. She had set off from her home in East End at about 6am on 21 Oct. 2022 to drive to her new job at the Health Services Authority, when the airbag exploded after the car veered off the road and down a steep slope on the Queen’s Highway, just yards from her house, and burst into flames.
Lawsuit filed in California
The Martinez family has now filed a lawsuit against the automaker’s US subsidiary, American Honda Motor Company, alleging that a more thorough approach to recalling vehicles in the Cayman Islands would have prevented her death.
A writ, filed in the California Superior Court in Los Angeles on behalf of Martinez’s parents, Joanna Welcome-Martinez and Barry Martinez, is calling for a jury trial into the wrongful death and negligence suit.
The writ acknowledges that American Honda eventually carried out an extensive recall process in the US by contacting more than 160,000 independent, third-party auto shops, after knowing about the defective airbags for several years.
However, the writ claims the company “consciously chose not to take the same measures to notify those in the Cayman Islands about the defect as those it employed in the US, including foregoing direct notice campaigns and relying exclusively upon its sole authorized dealer in [Cayman], Car City, to spread the word, rather than meaningfully engaging with third-party repair facilities as it had done in the US”.
The writ also claims that Honda America was aware that there were thousands of affected Hondas in Cayman, most of which had not been imported, sold or serviced via Car City and had not been recalled, but had made no effort to reach out to other importers, dealers or garages.
The family is represented by attorneys Andrew Parker Felix and Steven Nauman of Morgan & Morgan and attorneys R. Frank Melton II and William Ourand of Melton Law Firm.
In a press release about the lawsuit, John Morgan, founder of personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, said, “Dr. Martinez’s story is a tragic example of what happens when companies put profits above safety. Despite allegedly knowing about the issues with Takata airbags in their vehicles since the early 2000s, Honda did not start recalling them until 2013.
“If they had acknowledged the problem earlier and taken the appropriate steps right away, we believe Dr. Martinez would still be with us.”
The airbag defect is responsible for at least 27 deaths and hundreds of injuries worldwide, the writ notes.
Japanese company Takata was one of the largest airbag manufacturers in the world before it went bankrupt due to the large number of injury claims against it.
Car inspected every year
The complaint alleges that Martinez and her family took her Honda Fit, which was subject to a 2015 airbag recall, to be inspected at a local, independent facility in Cayman every year, but the facility never replaced the airbag because American Honda allegedly never contacted them.
“We believe that one phone call might have saved Dr. Martinez’s life,” said Morgan & Morgan attorney Felix.
He said the “allegedly lackadaisical recall effort Honda carried out in the Caribbean contributed to the untimely and preventable death” of Martinez.
The writ notes that there are fewer than 20 authorised inspection facilities for vehicle licensing in the Cayman Islands, so American Honda “could have easily communicated” with each of them to alert them to the list of affected vehicles on the HondaCayman.com website.
“In addition to seeking justice for Dr. Martinez’s family, we hope this lawsuit will compel American Honda to undertake a more substantial recall effort in the Caribbean, including in the Cayman Islands, to get these ticking time bombs out of vehicles for good,” Felix added.
Documentation shown at the inquest into Martinez’s death indicated that the Honda Fit in which she died had been inspected annually and passed at least five times in Cayman.
On 29 May last year, just days before the inquest, the Department of Vehicle and Drivers’ Licensing announced a policy to fail any vehicles that are subject to the worldwide recall of the Takata airbag in which the defective equipment has not already been repaired or replaced.
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