Airbags Didn't Deploy When You Hit a Deer in Pennsylvania: Product Claims and Who Pays

Attorney Answer

There are two separate questions: who pays now, and whether the car's maker is responsible. Your own auto policy pays first-party medical benefits for your head injury, whatever caused the crash. Damage to the car from hitting an animal is usually covered only if you carry comprehensive coverage. Whether the maker is responsible depends on whether the airbags should have deployed in that impact — something the car's crash-data recorder can help show. Pennsylvania lets you recover from a manufacturer for injuries a defect added, but you have to prove what it added. Keep the car exactly as it is.

Your medical bills. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1711(a) requires every Pennsylvania auto policy to include a medical benefit:

(a) Medical benefit.-- An insurer issuing or delivering liability insurance policies covering any motor vehicle of the type required to be registered under this title, except recreational vehicles not intended for highway use, motorcycles, motor-driven cycles or motorized pedalcycles or like type vehicles, registered and operated in this Commonwealth, shall include coverage providing a medical benefit in the amount of $5,000.

Under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1713(a), your own policy pays first.

A claim against the maker. Pennsylvania recognizes what is called a crashworthiness claim: a manufacturer may be liable for injuries a defect added beyond what the collision itself would have caused, even though the defect did not cause the collision. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania recognized the doctrine in Harsh v. Petroll, 584 Pa. 606, 887 A.2d 209 (2005), and the Superior Court held in Kupetz v. Deere & Co., 435 Pa. Super. 16, 644 A.2d 1213 (1994) that the injured person must prove the extent of the added injury. The defect itself is judged under Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc., 628 Pa. 296, 104 A.3d 328 (2014): a product is defective if it was more dangerous than an ordinary consumer would expect, or if its risks outweighed its usefulness.

Non-deployment is not automatically a defect. Airbags are designed to deploy only in certain kinds and severities of impact. Whether yours should have deployed is an engineering question, and the answer is in the car: its crash-data recorder and the restraint system's components. That is why the car must not be repaired, sold or scrapped before it has been inspected.

What you can do

1. Get your head injury checked now, and keep every record.

2. Open a first-party medical claim with your own insurer, and a comprehensive claim for the car if you carry that coverage.

3. Tell your insurer, and the tow yard or body shop, in writing, that the car and its crash-data recorder must be kept as they are for a possible defect claim. If the insurer declares it a total loss, ask in writing that it not be sold or destroyed before an inspection.

4. Photograph the interior, the airbag covers and the seatbelts, and keep the purchase papers.

5. Even if you are handling this yourself, you would be best served by a brief phone consultation with a local Pennsylvania attorney before you act. Most lawyers offer a short initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts — and on how your court actually handles this — is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. A lawsuit against the manufacturer for the injury must be filed within two years under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5524(2). A suit against your own insurer over unpaid medical benefits has four years under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1721(a).