If a knee airbag broke your leg, burned you, lacerated your skin, or failed to deploy properly, you can bring a knee airbag injury lawsuit against the automaker and the component makers under product liability law. These cases are winnable because independent research has repeatedly found that knee airbags do little to reduce overall injury risk and can actually raise the probability of tibia, fibula, ankle, and foot fractures in certain crashes. They are also hard, because the defense will argue that the crash, not the airbag, caused your injuries, and courts demand rigorous expert analysis to prove otherwise.
What the Research Shows About Knee Airbag Harm
The strongest evidence a plaintiff can point to comes from a July 2019 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study by Samuel S. Monfort and Becky C. Mueller. The researchers analyzed 309 moderate-overlap and 105 small-overlap frontal crash tests of model-year 2011 and later vehicles, then compared the lab data to 14,599 real-world two-vehicle frontal crashes across 14 states.1IIHS. Effectiveness of Knee Airbags Across Two Crash Paradigms
Knee airbags did not meaningfully reduce overall injury risk. In moderate-overlap tests the combined probability of at least one injury was 66% with knee airbags and 65% without. In small-overlap tests the figure was 58% for both groups. Real-world injury rates were 7.4% with knee airbags and 7.9% without, a difference that was not statistically significant.2IIHS. Effectiveness of Knee Airbags Across Two Crash Paradigms
In small-overlap crashes, vehicles with knee airbags showed significantly higher injury probabilities in several lower-body regions:
- Left lower tibia (ankle and foot area): 3.8% rose to 5.3%.
- Right lower tibia: 2.5% rose to 3.7%.
- Left upper tibia (knee area): 1.8% rose to 2.7%.
- Right upper tibia: 1.1% rose to 1.7%.
- Right femur: 0.38% rose to 0.52%.2IIHS. Effectiveness of Knee Airbags Across Two Crash Paradigms
The IIHS researchers concluded that knee airbags do not “confer a substantial safety benefit” and suggested that redesigning lower instrument panels could prevent leg injuries just as well.3Automotive News. Knee Airbags Show Little Safety Benefit, Study Finds
Earlier work points the same direction. A 2013 matched-cohort study using NHTSA’s Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network database found statistically significant increases in proximal tibia and fibula fractures and in foot and ankle fractures in knee airbag-equipped vehicles.4NHTSA. UVA Knee Airbag Research A University of Virginia doctoral thesis found that for belted occupants, knee airbag inflation raised the predicted risk of moderate-or-worse tibia shaft fractures from 11.8% to 20.9%, and for out-of-position drivers the predicted fracture risk was 40.6% higher than for drivers seated normally.5University of Virginia Library. Driver Lower Extremity Response and Injury With Knee Airbag Deployment
Beyond fractures, airbag deployment can cause burns. Medical literature attributes roughly 8% of all airbag-related injuries to burns, including thermal burns from inflation gases, chemical burns from alkaline combustion byproducts, and frictional burns from the bag’s rapid expansion.6PubMed Central. Air Bag Deployment Burns The law firm Motley Rice has alleged that a plastic housing component in some knee airbag assemblies can become jagged on deployment, causing severe leg lacerations and skin loss.7Motley Rice. Knee Injury Airbag Lawsuit
The Three Legal Theories You Can Use
Knee airbag claims proceed under product liability law. Unlike ordinary negligence, product liability generally does not require you to prove the manufacturer was careless. You must show the product was defective and that the defect caused your injury.8Justia. Elements of a Products Liability Claim Three theories are available:
Design defect. The airbag’s design was unreasonably dangerous. Plaintiffs typically must show that a safer alternative design existed and would not have imposed unreasonable costs. For knee airbags, the IIHS-recommended approach of redesigning the lower instrument panel is one such alternative.
Manufacturing defect. The particular airbag that hurt you was flawed because something went wrong in production or assembly, like the improperly fastened units behind the 2019 Lexus ES recall discussed below.
Failure to warn. The manufacturer knew or should have known about a risk and did not adequately disclose it to consumers.8Justia. Elements of a Products Liability Claim
Who Can Be Sued
Potential defendants include the vehicle manufacturer, the company that designed or built the airbag components, the maker of the airbag’s electronic control unit, and any dealer or repair shop that improperly installed or serviced the system.9Motley Rice. Suing Over Airbags Not Deploying If another driver caused the underlying crash, a separate personal injury claim against that driver can run alongside the product liability case.
The Causation Problem
The hardest part of a knee airbag case is proving the airbag, not the crash, caused the injury. NHTSA’s CIREN program reviewed 59 real-world crashes in which the driver-side knee airbag deployed. Twenty-nine involved lower-extremity injuries, affecting drivers in vehicles from Toyota, Kia, Dodge, Chrysler, and BMW. In one case, a 45-year-old unbelted woman driving a 2010 Toyota Camry suffered proximal tibia and fibula fractures, but researchers labeled the source of her injuries “indeterminate.” They could not say whether the crash forces, the airbag deployment, or the airbag’s alteration of her leg position was responsible.4NHTSA. UVA Knee Airbag Research
That ambiguity is the defense’s playbook. Expect automakers to argue that the collision itself produced your fractures or burns, or that you were sitting too close to the device. Overcoming those arguments requires biomechanical and engineering experts who can examine the actual airbag assembly, the vehicle, and the injury pattern.
Expert Testimony Can Make or Break the Case
How thoroughly your expert works matters as much as what they conclude. The Virginia Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Hyundai Motor Co. v. Duncan is a sharp warning. The Duncan family sued Hyundai after their son suffered a severe traumatic brain injury when the side airbag in his 2008 Hyundai Tiburon failed to deploy in a February 2010 crash. A jury awarded them $14.14 million, finding the vehicle unreasonably dangerous because the airbag sensor sat under the driver’s seat rather than on the B-pillar.10Justia. Hyundai Motor Co. v. Duncan
The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the verdict. The family’s mechanical engineer had performed no tests or calculations to confirm that the airbag would have deployed had the sensor been in his proposed location. The court called his opinion an “unfounded assumption,” and because his testimony was the only evidence supporting the design defect claim, excluding it ended the case.11Courthouse News Service. Hyundai Off the Hook in $14M Airbag Claim The lesson for knee airbag plaintiffs is to retain experts whose opinions rest on actual testing and quantitative analysis, not reasoned speculation.
The 2019 Lexus ES Recall: A Manufacturing Defect Example
On April 10, 2019, Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing recalled approximately 560 model-year 2019 Lexus ES sedans. The recall, NHTSA Campaign ID 19V288000, addressed driver-side knee airbags that may not have been properly fastened to the instrument panel during assembly, which could prevent proper deployment in a crash.12Justia Auto Recalls. Lexus ES 2019 Recall 19V28800013Automotive Fleet. Lexus ES Recalled for Driver Knee Airbag Toyota reported no accidents or injuries tied to the defect at the time, and authorized dealers inspected and replaced the assembly as needed at no cost.14CNET. 2019 Lexus ES Recall Knee Airbag Fitment15NHTSA. Lexus Safety Recall Notice 19V-288 Motley Rice separately alleged that the same Lexus knee airbags were defective by design, deploying with “extreme force” capable of causing bone fractures, ankle breaks, and severe lacerations. That investigation is no longer active.7Motley Rice. Knee Injury Airbag Lawsuit
Deadlines and Preserving Your Evidence
Statutes of limitations vary by state. Tennessee, for example, gives you six years from the date of injury and bars any claim filed more than ten years after the product was first purchased.16NST Law. Airbag Defects Other states are shorter, and many apply a discovery rule that starts the clock when you knew or should have known about the defect, not the crash date. Confirm your deadline with a lawyer licensed in your state before anything else.
Preserve the physical evidence. Keep the vehicle and the deployed airbag assembly, including the housing and electronic control components, so engineers can examine them. Without the hardware, proving defect and causation becomes nearly impossible. Settlement outcomes in airbag defect cases range widely, from moderate five-figure amounts for soft-tissue injuries to multimillion-dollar recoveries for catastrophic or permanently disabling harm, and the strength of the preserved evidence drives much of that range.