Some of the most consequential auto defect claims of the last decade are not about how a vehicle was designed; they are about what the manufacturer left out. Side curtain airbags, rollover-activated curtain airbags, electronic stability control, laminated side glazing, lane departure warning, automatic emergency braking, and rear cross-traffic alert are all examples of mature, available, feasible safety technology that for years sat on a manufacturer’s options sheet—or on a competitor’s standard sheet—while occupants of the manufacturer’s bare-bones trim lines died in foreseeable crashes.
Cronauer Law evaluates every catastrophic injury or wrongful death case for failure-to-equip claims. The discipline is sophisticated and evolves with the technology; what was state of the art in 2010 is the floor of expectation today. This page walks through the most common failure-to-equip theories, the model years for which they are viable, and how the law handles them.
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Failure-to-equip claims are typically pleaded as design defect, sometimes alongside a marketing-defect or failure-to-warn theory. The plaintiff’s burden is to prove that a feasible alternative design existed (the safety feature in question), that the alternative would have prevented or reduced the injury, and that a reasonable manufacturer in the same position would have installed it.
The law generally rejects the manufacturer’s go-to defense—”the customer didn’t pay for the option”—because dangerous conditions are not waived merely by being made optional. See Branham v. Ford Motor Co., 390 S.C. 203, 701 S.E.2d 5 (2010); Ford Motor Co. v. Boomer, 285 Va. 141, 736 S.E.2d 724 (2013). Federal preemption rarely reaches failure-to-equip claims because the FMVSS typically address minimums and do not displace state-law duties to install feasible additional protection.
Side curtain airbags deploy from the roof rail and cover the side window opening from the A-pillar to the C-pillar. They protect against head and neck injury in side impacts and—if rollover-activated—help retain occupants during rolls.
Crash type: side impact (“T-bone”). First model year for claim viability: 2000 or later. Injury type: severe brain or neck injury.
By the early 2000s, side curtain airbags were available across nearly every manufacturer’s premium lineup. Cases involving 2005–2015 model year vehicles without side curtains in side impacts that produced catastrophic head injuries are routinely viable.
Rollover-activated curtain airbags include a rollover sensor that triggers deployment when impending roll is detected. The curtain stays inflated for an extended interval. Their primary function is to keep belted occupants’ heads inside the vehicle and to help retain unbelted occupants.
Crash type: rollover. First model year for claim viability: 2002 or later (the 2002.5 Ford Explorer was the first to offer them). Injury type: severe brain or neck injury for belted occupants; any injury for unbelted.
Electronic stability control (ESC) compares driver steering input to actual vehicle response and intervenes with selective brake application and engine torque modulation to keep the vehicle on the intended path. ESC dramatically reduces single-vehicle, on-road rollover and loss-of-control events.
Crash type: rollover, especially on-road trip. First model year for claim viability: 2003 or later. Injury type: any injury arising from loss of control.
FMVSS 126 has required ESC on light vehicles since model year 2012, but failure-to-equip claims for vehicles built after manufacturers’ competitors had standardized ESC—often years before 2012—remain viable.
Laminated glass—the same construction used in windshields—does not vacate the window plane when broken; it cracks but stays in place. In rollovers and side impacts, laminated side windows mitigate ejection. Tempered side glazing, which shatters into pebbles, becomes an open ejection portal.
Crash type: rollover or side impact. First model year for claim viability: any (laminated glazing has been available for decades). Injury type: any injury from full or partial ejection.
Lane departure warning (LDW) uses a forward camera to detect lane markings and alerts the driver to unintended lane departure. Lane keep assist (LKA) goes further and applies steering input to keep the vehicle in lane.
Crash type: run-off-road or lane departure crash. First model year for claim viability: roughly 2006 (Volvo S80, 2006) for LDW; later for LKA. Injury type: catastrophic outcome from a fatigue-related or distraction-related lane departure.
Automatic emergency braking (AEB) uses radar, lidar, or camera-based perception to detect imminent forward collisions and apply braking automatically. Forward collision warning (FCW) alerts the driver in advance.
Crash type: rear-end collision into a stopped or slower-moving vehicle. First model year for claim viability: late 2000s for FCW; 2010s for AEB. Injury type: severe injury or death in a rear-end crash with delayed driver response.
Twenty manufacturers committed in 2016 to make AEB standard on virtually all new light vehicles by September 2022. Cases involving non-equipped vehicles in this window are increasingly common.
FMVSS 111 has required rearview cameras on light vehicles built after May 1, 2018. Vehicles produced earlier without backup cameras—especially those involved in backover injuries to children—remain candidates for failure-to-equip analysis.
Yes, in nearly every state. The fact that a feature was offered as an option does not relieve the manufacturer of liability for selling vehicles without it. The plaintiff still must prove feasibility, causation, and reasonableness, but “the customer chose the cheaper trim” is not a defense.
That is the work of the case. Cronauer Law retains biomechanical, accident reconstruction, and human-factors experts to demonstrate, by reference to the actual crash dynamics, the injuries the feature would have prevented or mitigated.
Almost never. Failure-to-equip claims usually allege the absence of a feature that the FMVSS does not require, so compliance is irrelevant. Even where the FMVSS speaks to the issue, the Safety Act’s savings clause and the Supreme Court’s preemption decisions preserve state-law claims.
These are catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases by definition. Verdicts and settlements vary widely with jurisdiction, facts, and damages, but they are routinely in the high six- to seven-figure range and higher in cases of permanent disability or fatality.
It depends on the feature. Side curtain airbags became broadly available in the early 2000s; ESC by the mid-2000s; ADAS technologies in the 2010s. Cronauer Law evaluates every case against the technology timeline at intake.
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