Texas Family Wins $124.5 Million Verdict in Audi Seat Back Failure Case

An 11-year-old boy who suffered brain damage in a rear-end collision was awarded a $124.5 million verdict in a products liability lawsuit against Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit. Jesse Rivera Jr’s head was injured as he sat in the back seat of his father’s 2005 Audi, which had come to a stop behind a school bus in 2012. While they were stopped another car behind them failed to stop and crashed into the rear end of the Audi. The force of the rear impact caused the driver’s seat back to collapse backward causing the driver, Jesse’s father to fly backward striking his head against Jesse’s head. The crash left Jesse Jr., who was 7 years old at the time, partially paralyzed and blind in his right eye. There are conflicting reports about whether or not Jesse and his father were wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

The Texas jury found Audi 55 percent responsible, the driver who rear-ended Rivera got 25 percent of responsibility and 20 percent responsibility to the father.

Seat back failures

While it might seem that it was a defect that the driver’s seat collapsed allowing him to collide with his son in the back seat, but this is actually a design feature. The Audi’s driver seat is designed to collapse backward allowing either the back seat, or the passenger riding in the back seat to absorb some of the energy from the collision. This would effectively make the person seated behind the driver’s seat serve as an air bag to cushion the impact of the driver in a rear-end crash. The seat backs in the Audi exceeded the federal safety standards.

According to a CBS news story, automakers and the NHTSA know that seat back safety standards are low because crashes involving seat back failures happen every day. Each day, about three children are killed in the U.S. in car crashes and about 470 are injured. About 11 percent of those child car crash victims are sitting in the back seat where their parents are told is the safest place for them to sit. NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind declined to comment about why seat back standards are so weak and why they have been unchanged for thirty years.

Passengers die and suffer serious injuries due to inadequate seat back standards and the automakers settle lawsuits with victims and keep right on doing what they have always done because they are not, in fact, violating the federal safety standards. When you or someone you care about has suffered a serious injury caused by a defective product, the US legal system provides an opportunity for you to receive compensation.