Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that Kia America, Inc., had no legal obligation to obtain requested documents from its parent corporation, Kia Corp., in a products liability suit brought by an injured electric vehicle owner.

Kerrie Vaughn’s 2016 Kia Soul EV Plus rolled out of her garage unattended. She attempted to stop the vehicle from rolling into the street and was knocked down, resulting in severe injuries. She brought a products liability suit against Kia America, Inc., alleging that the vehicle had a defective transmission resulting from the design or manufacturing process that allowed the vehicle to roll away while the gear shift lever was in the park position. A magistrate judge issued an amended discovery order, ordering Kia America to produce the plaintiff’s requested documents from its nonparty parent corporation, Kia Corp. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, pursuant to the corporations’ distributorship agreement, Kia America had control over documents held by Kia Corp. regarding the design, development, manufacturing, operation, and functionality of components and systems in the 2016 Kia Soul EV. The defendant objected to the amended discovery order.

Sustaining the objection, the district court considered Kia America’s argument that the magistrate judge had erred in holding that it had control over the requested documents because it had the legal right to obtain documents under the distributorship agreement. The court found that under the agreement, Kia America was responsible for performing service on products it distributed and that to perform this duty, Kia America agreed to provide Kia Corp. with assistance in producing service materials. Moreover, the court found that Kia Corp. was obligated under the agreement to provide engineering drawings to Kia America. Nevertheless, the court pointed out, while Kia America arguably has a legal right to request such engineering drawings to prepare service materials, nothing in the distributorship agreement implies that Kia America has the legal right to request engineering drawings or other materials from Kia Corp. for reasons unrelated to its preparation of service materials, including to obtain documents requested for litigation purposes. Also, the fact that Kia America has the ability to ask Kia Corp. for design documents does not prove it has the legal right to obtain them under the distributor agreement, the court added.

Finding no evidence Kia America had access to the plaintiff’s requested documents in its ordinary course of business servicing Kia vehicles under the distributor agreement, the court concluded that Kia America had no legal right to obtain the documents. Thus, the court sustained the objection, holding that the plaintiff had not satisfied her burden of proving Kia America had control of the requested documents.

Citation: Vaughn v. Kia Am., Inc., 2024 WL 2274084 (D. Colo. May 20, 2024).

Comment: In Fox v. Kia Am., Inc., 2024 WL 1328730 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 28, 2024), Angela Fox suffered severe injury when her vehicle collided with a stolen 2021 or 2022 Kia Sportage while its driver was attempting to flee from police. Fox sued Kia America, Inc., alleging that her injuries resulted from the Kia Sportage’s defective design and manufacture. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged, the defendant failed to install industry-standard anti-theft devices in most of the vehicles it sold in the United States from 2010 through 2021—including the Kia Sportage with which she collided. The defendant’s failure to install such devices “opened the floodgates” to vehicle theft, crime sprees, reckless driving, and public harm, the plaintiff asserted. Granting the defense’s motion to dismiss, the district court found that in the instant case, which involved reckless operation of a stolen vehicle, the plaintiff failed to allege legal causation, specifically that the alleged defect in the Kia Sportage was the proximate cause of her injury.