CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Bill Robins delivering his opening statement
Las Vegas, NV - A Nevada state court jury heard opening statements Monday in a lawsuit alleging that a Nissan SUV’s supposedly defective design caused the deaths of three passengers in a rollover accident, and the proceedings are being webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The families of Kewal Singh, Jasvir Kaur, and Nirbhai Singh sued Nissan in 2017 following a 2017 accident on a California highway where a vehicle struck another car that then collided with the subject of the lawsuit, a 2004-model Nissan Xterra sport utility vehicle.
The plaintiffs’ attorney Bill Robins of Robins Cloud alleged during his opening statement that the Xterra lacked a safety system known as “Vehicle Dynamic Control” which can help keep a vehicle upright if it experiences excessive yaw following an impact.
Robins argued Nissan failed to perform adequate rollover testing on the Xterra, and that the seatbelt system also failed to properly restrain the passengers.
Nissan’s attorney Thomas Klein of Klein Thomas & Lee told jurors that the Xterra met all applicable federal safety standards, and that responsibility for the fatalities in the accident lies solely with the driver that caused the initial crash.
CVN screenshot of defense attorney Thomas Klein delivering his opening statement
Klein argued that Vehicle Dynamic Control, though not necessary to comply with regulatory requirements, would not have prevented a rollover in this type of collision. He also told jurors the evidence would show the plaintiffs were not wearing their seat belts properly at the time of the accident, which Robins disputed in his opening statement.
The trial before Judge David Jones is expected to take 3-4 weeks to complete, and CVN will remain present for the duration of the proceedings.
The case is captioned Maninder Singh, et al. v. Nissan Motor Company LTD., et al., case number A-17-751024-C in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com