Appeals court jumpstarts ‘sudden acceleration’ lawsuit against Kia 

(Reuters) - A deeply divided federal appeals court on Thursday revived two families’ product-liability lawsuits against Kia Motors America and its parent company, Hyundai, stemming from the fatal crash of a 2008 Optima in Winchester, Tennessee.

The three judges on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ panel agreed on little except that the 2015 crash was tragic: it killed the Optima’s 83-year-old driver, Mary Jean Parks, as well as 7-year-old twins who were riding in the minivan her car struck.

Two of the panelists said a federal judge in Winchester ruled for the automakers prematurely in 2020, after excluding testimony from two of the plaintiffs’ four expert witnesses, and declining to consider whether the testimony of the other two was admissible.

Circuit Judge Eric Clay’s lead opinion went further: he said the judgment was improper because the plaintiffs had offered enough circumstantial evidence of a problem with the car’s electronic cruise-control system to take their strict liability, negligence, and failure-to-warn claims to a jury under the Tennessee Product Liability Act (TPLA).

In her concurrence, Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons agreed only “to the extent that” the judge must consider whether the remaining experts’ testimony is admissible before deciding whether summary judgment is warranted.

The dissenter, Circuit Judge John Bush, was especially critical of Clay’s opinion, saying its discussion of the TPLA “does not constitute a holding of this Court, and it binds no one — not even the district court on remand.”

Kia, Hyundai and their attorneys at the Spencer and Lewis Thomason firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The appellants also had no immediate response. Parks’ family was represented by attorneys at Rogers, Duncan & North. The twins’ parents, Aaron and Lynetta Hill, were represented by counsel at Thomas J. Murray and Associates and the Keeton Law Firm.

According to Thursday’s lead opinion, Parks was about to turn into a Kroger parking lot when her Optima began accelerating, reaching an estimated speed of 90 miles per hour before plowing into the Hills’ minivan.

The plaintiffs alleged Parks’ car suffered from defects in its cruise control and electronic throttle control systems and lacked “Smart Pedal” braking technology to override unintended acceleration.

Kia attributed the accident to driver error, saying Parks must have hit the accelerator when she meant to hit the brake.

The lead case is Hill et al. v. Kia Motors et al., 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals No. 20- 5690.

For the Hills: James Murray and Thomas Murray of Thomas J. Murray & Associates; Christopher Keeton of Keeton Law Firm

For the Parkses: J. Stanley Rogers and Christina Henley Duncan of Rogers, Duncan & North

For Kia et al: Christopher Spencer of Spencer LLP; Randolph Bibb Jr and Whitney Henry Kimerling of Lewis Thomason

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.