Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court denied a Tennessee automotive part supplier’s motion to dismiss for lack of specific personal jurisdiction in a suit alleging liability for a seat belt’s failure to deploy during a South Carolina resident’s crash in North Carolina.

South Carolina resident Gary Holliday was injured when his Nissan Sentra was hit by a tractor-trailer while driving in North Carolina. He and his wife sued Nissan Motor Co. and automotive part supplier Calsonic Kansei North America, Inc., a Tennessee company without any property, agents, or employees in South Carolina. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants were liable for the Nissan’s occupant restraint system, which failed to deploy. Calsonic Kansei moved for dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction, arguing that it has never specifically designed or distributed its products in South Carolina and has no property, agents, or employees there.

Denying the motion, the court noted that Kansei produces and sells electronic controller integration parts to automobile manufacturers, including safety systems like the airbags at issue in the plaintiffs’ case. Nissan also owned a 40% share of Calsonic Kansei’s parent company, and a majority of Calsonic Kansei’s sales are to Nissan, which has car dealerships in South Carolina and throughout the United States. Kansei also has other business contacts with companies located in South Carolina, such as Honda and Volvo, the court said, adding that it is thus foreseeable that Kansei’s occupant restraint systems would end up in South Carolina. Moreover, the court found, Kansei did not have mere knowledge that its products would enter South Carolina, it marketed its products to the state for 15 years.

Consequently, the court held that Kansei has clearly indicated its intent to serve South Carolina and therefore purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting activities there, making personal jurisdiction in South Carolina reasonable.

Citation: Holliday v. Nissan Motor Co., 2019 WL 2612771 (D.S.C. June 26, 2019).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members John D. O’Neill and Kevin R. Dean, both of Mt. Pleasant, S.C.