– A Kia theft case brought in the death of Ohio resident Matthew P. Moshi will have another day in court following a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
In November 2023, 36-year-old Matthew Moshi was driving a 2009 Honda Civic when a stolen and speeding 2018 Kia Optima ran a stop sign at the intersection of Beacon Hill Road and Hilliard Rome Road.
The stolen Optima crashed into the Honda Civic, killing Mr. Moshi.
The Kia Optima was being driven by a 15-year-old who stole the car in Columbus, Ohio, while the driver and his three teenage passengers were fleeing police when the car crashed into the Honda Civic.
Mr Moshi’s family blamed Kia for his death, claiming the car had several safety defects and was not equipped with an immobilizer. The lawsuit alleges that the stolen Kia Optima had a defective steering column, a defective ignition lock cylinder and an exposed ignition switch.
Kia’s argument was simple. The automaker said there was nothing defective with the 2018 Kia Optima, which met or exceeded all federal safety standards. The automaker blamed the teen who stole the Optima, killing Matthew Moshi.
The automaker also referred to previous legal decisions in Ohio.
“But Ohio’s unbroken case law, including two Ohio Supreme Court decisions, holds that a car thief’s independent decision to drive dangerously supersedes all previous steps in the causal chain and stands alone as the sole proximate cause of a resulting accident.”
Kia also told the judge about a separate, but nearly identical, stolen Kia lawsuit filed in Ohio that was ultimately dismissed.
“[A]As a matter of law, the theft and subsequent reckless operation of the Kia Sportage involved in plaintiff’s accident constitutes an intervening, superseding cause that breaks the chain of causation as to defendant Kia.” — Fox v. Come on
The trial court judge agreed with Kia and dismissed Matthew Moshi’s wrongful death lawsuit.
Appeal against Kia theft case
The plaintiffs appealed the district court’s dismissal, and a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit will change everything now and in the future, as courts rule that car thefts are caused by car manufacturers, not by criminals breaking into and stealing cars.
According to the Sixth Circuit, Hyundai and Kia should have prophetically seen years ago that failure to equip vehicles with immobilizers would one day allow teenage criminals to smash the windows, destroy the steering columns, remove the ignition switches, steal the vehicles and kill innocent people.
The reasoning can be considered absurd because immobilizers are not mandatory in the US and are the most stolen vehicles in the country every year. Are equipped with immobilizers.
An ongoing class action lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler involves millions of vehicles that could be stolen by criminals who break windows and allegedly use key programmers to steal the vehicles. All stolen Chrysler vehicles were equipped with immobilizers.
The theft case against Matthew Moshi had been dismissed by the Ohio court based on previous court rulings that found that “a car owner’s failure to secure a car from theft does not make the owner liable for injuries caused by a thief’s negligent driving.”
But according to the appeals court, this has nothing to do with the car manufacturers that designed and built the vehicles. The 2-1 decision shows how state laws and even prior court decisions can mean something completely different to one judge than to another.
The appeals court ruled that Hyundai and Kia should have known there was a link between car thefts and accidents in Ohio.
However, the dissenting judge ruled in favor of Kia by finding negligence on the part of the criminals, and not on the part of the car manufacturer.
Hyundai/Kia Theft Lawsuits – The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
At least 20 states and several cities blamed Hyundai and Kia for the thefts rather than the teen criminals in those cities and states.
Both automakers insisted there was nothing defective in their vehicles, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration agreed after federal safety regulators investigated the Hyundai and Kia vehicles. NHTSA concluded that there was nothing wrong with the vehicles in terms of a lack of immobilizers.
NHTSA emphasized that immobilizers are not required in the U.S., saying, “The safety hazard arises from unsafe use of a motor vehicle by an unauthorized person after significant destructive actions have been taken against parts of the vehicle.”
And while hundreds of lawsuits alleged that the vehicles violated federal safety standards, the NHTSA disagreed, saying the federal regulations “do not account for actions by criminal actors to break open or remove part of the steering column and take out the ignition switch to start a vehicle.”
The stolen Kia Optima lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (Eastern Division): Estate of Matthew P. Moshi v. Kia America, Inc.
The plaintiff is represented by Scott W. Schiff & Associates Co., LPA.
Read about other lawsuits blaming Hyundai and Kia for deaths and injuries caused by stolen vehicles.
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