Santa Clara, CA: BMW of North America LLC is facing a proposed defective automotive class action lawsuit alleging its feature of hands-free and remote locking and unlocking of car doors is defective, because it causes vehicles to "spontaneously lock"while keys and sometimes drivers' children are inside the car.
According to named plaintiff Kieva Myers, all 2008 through 2015 X5 model vehicles manufactured and sold by BMW contain a potentially defective automated feature of being able to lock and unlock car doors without a direct action by a driver.
Myers alleges her 2013 BMW X5 manual states that the general concept of the locking "comfort feature"is that a vehicle can be accessed without need of the remote control. The remote just needs to be detected by the vehicle when it is in range and the car can be locked and unlocked. This feature is supposed to be impeded when the key is detected inside the vehicle, preventing keys from being locked inside unknowingly. However, Myers claims this safeguard failed in October when her "very young child"and keys were locked inside her car.
"This resulted in Kieva' child being locked inside the [...] vehicle,"the complaint states. "In order to rescue Kieva' child, it was necessary to break one of the [...] vehicle' windows, doing damage to the [...] vehicle and terrifying Kieva' child."
Myers asserts that "numerous owners"of the allegedly defective vehicles have reported similar accounts of spontaneous locking while a vehicle's keys were inside the car but not the drivers.
According to a complaint filed in 2011 with the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, a 2009 BMW X5 owner claimed that after his toddler was strapped into a car seat on a hot day, the car doors automatically locked, even though the keys were inside his wife' purse that she had set down inside the car. "We called BMW Assist to remotely unlock the car,"the complaint states. "This did not work."
The couple was ultimately forced to call the police and a fireman, who were unable to open the car doors and had to resort to smashing a window in order to free the child. The car doors could not be unlocked for two hours after the incident, according to the complaint.
Myers cites a further two other NHTSA complaints regarding young children being trapped in BMW X5' with doors that spontaneously locked while car keys were inside. She alleges the complaints clearly show the automaker was alerted to the problem.
However, in response to Myers direct complaint to BMW, the automaker said it "was not impossible"for a key to be locked inside a car and if the locking button on a car' remote was inadvertently pressed "then it would certainly appear that it had somehow locked itself,"according to the complaint.
Myers argued that this explanation contradicts BMW' owner' manual and actually acknowledges that a vehicle's remote can be locked inside a car, making the manual "false and misleading. "A child being locked inside of a vehicle creates a very serious threat to human life,"Myers said. "Class vehicles locking by themselves is extremely unsafe."
Myers, claiming that BMW concealed and failed to disclose the existence and nature of the defect to consumers, said that she and members of the proposed class have incurred out-of-pocket costs and suffered a devaluation of their cars. She is seeking cost reimbursement, along with unspecified compensatory, exemplary and statutory damages.
The proposed class is represented by Robert Starr of The Law Office Of Robert L. Starr. The case is Myers v. BMW of North America LLC et al., case number 3:16-cv-00412, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
