A U.S. jury ruled Monday that South Korea's top carmaker, Hyundai, must pay $14 million to a Virginia man who sustained traumatic brain injury in a 2010 car crash, determining the side air bag system in his Tiburon was defective.
Zachary "Gage" Duncan, then 16, was driving the 2008 Tiburon when the side air bag failed to deploy during the accident.
His parents filed a damage suit against Hyundai.
Jurors in state court in Pulaski County, Virginia, "heard days of technical testimony from engineers and analyzed dozens of crash-test videos," according to Stein Mitchell Muse & Cipollone LLP, a law firm representing the victim's parents.
"Plaintiffs proved that the air bag failed to deploy because Hyundai placed the side air bag sensor in the wrong location in the 2003 to 2008 models of the Tiburon," it said in a press release.
"This is an important victory for our client and for public safety," said Ari Casper, the plaintiffs' lead attorney.
Hyundai expressed disagreement with the verdict and said it intends to appeal. The carmaker contends the air-bag system met federal safety standards and had been fully tested. (Yonhap)