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The
settlement was confirmed by Takata Corp. Under the agreement to
settle the case, the terms were not disclosed.
It came the same day a Florida state court judge was to hear a
request to require Takata's chief executive, Shigehisa Takada,
to submit to a civil deposition. As part of the settlement, the
request was dropped.
Lawyers said Patricia Mincey, was severely injured after an air
bag inflator forcefully deployed in her 2001 Honda Civic in a
June 2014 crash. Four days after the crash, her vehicle was
recalled. She died in April at age 77 after spending nearly two
years in a hospital.
Takata air bag inflators have been linked to as many as 14
deaths worldwide, including 13 in Honda vehicles, because they
can deploy with too much force, sending deadly metal fragments
flying, the company and U.S. investigators say.
In Mincey's crash, the air bag did not rupture but forcefully
deployed, her lawyers said. The lawsuit accused Takata and Honda
of concealing the "potential overpowered deployment from
consumers for more than a decade."
Honda settled with the Mincey family earlier this year.
The Mincey lawsuit turned up numerous disclosures about
companies' handling of defective air bags.
Theodore Leopold, a lawyer who represented the Mincey family,
praised the settlement - and said the lawsuit had turned up
significant issues about Takata air bag inflators.
Nearly 100 million Takata inflators have been declared unsafe
worldwide. In May, automakers agreed to recall another 35
million to 40 million U.S. air bag inflators by 2019.
Previously, 14 automakers had recalled 24 million U.S. vehicles.
Last month, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration warned that Takata air bag inflators on more than
300,000 recalled but unrepaired Honda vehicles show a
substantial risk of rupturing, and urged owners to stop driving
the "unsafe" cars until they have been fixed.
The agency cited new test data that shows some 313,000 2001-2003
model Honda and Acura vehicles have as high as a 50 percent
chance of a dangerous air bag inflator rupture in a crash -
including the 2001 Honda Civic.
Takata has been the subject of a criminal investigation by the
U.S. Justice Department since late 2014.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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