McCabe

Plaintiff Lucille McCabe appeals from a judgment entered in a products liability action after the trial court granted summary judgment for defendants American Honda Motor Company, Incorporated, and Saturn of the Valley, Incorporated (Saturn). McCabe was injured when the driver’s side air bag in her Honda Civic failed to deploy in a frontal collision with another car. McCabe sued Honda, the air bag’s manufacturer, and Saturn, the reseller, alleging the air bag was defective in both its manufacture and its design. The trial court granted Honda’s motion for summary judgment, reasoning the expert declaration from a Honda engineer established that the air bag was not intended to inflate under the circumstances of the crash and that McCabe’s testimony that she “expected” the air bag to deploy was insufficient, without expert testimony, to raise a triable issue of material fact as to product defect.

On appeal, McCabe contends she raised triable issues of fact as to design defect under the “consumer expectation theory” and maintains the court erred in holding the consumer expectation test inapplicable as a matter of law. We agree McCabe raised triable issues of fact as to…