Hyundai Punished for Unfair Trial Tactics

Posted by John Sedgewick - 08/12/09 at 04:12 pm

Hyundai Motor America has been punished by the highest court in the State of Washington for falsely responding to questions in a court case. The case involved allegations of defects in a Hyundai Accent which allowed a seat to collapse, and resulted in a passenger, Jesse Magana, being rendered paraplegic when he was ejected from the  car  during a crash.

Mr. Magana filed suit and, as allowed by the court,  asked  Hyundai to produce information about the design and construction of the car.  Hyundai and its lawyers  did not respond fully and openly. When challenged later in the case, Hyundai was found by the court to be willfully hiding information and hindering Magana’s honest efforts to pursue his case. As punishment for Hyundai’s behavior, the trial court defaulted Hyundai and entered an award of  $8,000,000 in favor of Mr. Magana.

That court order was upheld on November 25, 2009 by the Supreme Court, State of Washington.

Honda was punished under similar circumstances in the middle of a trial in California just a few years back.

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