Products Liability Law Daily Wrap Up, EVIDENTIARY ISSUES—MOTOR VEHICLE EQUIPMENT—Ill. App.: Court affirms grant of summary judgment to Toyota after finding evidence speculative, (Mar 12, 2026)

By Susan L. Smith, JD, MA

The representative of the estate of a man who died shortly after a vehicle collision failed to present sufficient arguments to prove claims of negligence, product liability, and breach of warranty.

An Illinois appellate court granted summary judgment to automobile companies after finding that a Decedent’s Representative’s proof of negligence, product liability, and breach of warranty claims relating to a vehicle collision were merely speculative. The Decedent was operating a 2017 Toyota Camry XLE (Camry) that he leased from an authorized dealership when a vehicle in front of him came to an abrupt stop, causing the Decedent to rear-end the vehicle. The Representative filed a 36-count complaint, including wrongful death, against multiple Defendants allegedly involved with the design, manufacture, distribution, sale, leasing, and testing of Toyota motor vehicles. The Defendants, Toyota Motor North America, Inc., Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America Inc., Oakbrook Toyota in Westmont (collectively, Toyota), and Daicel Corporation filed a motion to preclude evidence as a discovery sanction and a motion for summary judgment. On appeal of the circuit court’s order granting summary judgment to the automobile companies, the Representative contended that the trial court erred in (1) concluding that the evidence supporting her claims was speculative, (2) failing to vet alleged misleading and/or false statements made by the Defendants, (3) misconstruing her deposition testimony, and (4) improperly accepting an incorrect inspection date for the damaged vehicle as fact. The appellate court found that the Representative’s proof of the negligence, product liability, and breach of warranty claims was speculative; thus, it affirmed the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Toyota and other Defendants (Headington v. Toyota Motor North America, Inc., No. 1-24-1210 (Ill. App. Mar. 9, 2026)).

Background. The Representative was not present in the vehicle at the time of the accident. Her testimony regarding the crash was based on statements made to her by her husband, the Decedent. The husband told her he was traveling slowly, approximately 5 to 10 miles an hour, when a vehicle in front of him came to an abrupt stop, causing him to rear-end the vehicle. He told her that the airbags had deployed and obstructed his visibility and that he was unable to drive the car. When he arrived home, the Representative observed a 1.5-inch laceration on his shin, allegedly caused by airbag shrapnel, that later developed into a hole for which the Decedent received medical treatment that eventually healed with medication. Several days after the accident, the Representative accompanied him to an auto body repair shop to retrieve personal items from the Camry and take photographs of the vehicle because he thought it was good evidence. Neither the Representative nor Decedent requested that Toyota inspect the car or ask the insurance company to preserve it for litigation prior to its destruction. The auto body repair shop deemed the Camry irreparable. The Representative testified that because the Camry was leased, she believed Toyota owned it; therefore, she had no right or duty to prevent its sale. The Decedent died in a hospital 17 days later.

Police testimony. The police officer that conducted an investigation at the scene determined that the Decedent rear-ended a vehicle stopped in traffic and concluded that the cause of the accident was the Decedent’s failure to reduce speed to avoid a crash. He did not perform an accident reconstruction or speed analysis to determine the velocity of the vehicles at impact; therefore, he offered no scientific opinion. He also testified that the Decedent did not report injuries at the scene and declined medical treatment. Further, he did not observe mechanical defects in the vehicle that would contribute to the accident or recall any damage to the vehicle or the deployment of the airbags.

Auto repair shop manager’s testimony. The auto repair shop manager testified that upon inspecting the vehicle, he found it odd that all the airbags in the car exploded. He said his opinion was based solely on his visual observation and general experience, not on any scientific analysis. He testified that the insurance company declared the vehicle a total loss and neither the Representative nor Decedent asked him to preserve the vehicle for litigation; thus, the vehicle was released to the insurance company’s salvage vendor.

Expert’s testimony. The Defendants’ expert testified that he never inspected the vehicle because it had been destroyed prior to the commencement of the litigation. He testified that without inspecting the vehicle and downloading data from the Auto Control Unit (ACU), there was no factual information available to determine whether the airbag system functioned as designed or malfunctioned. He explained that impacts with movable objects, such as other vehicles, typically require higher speeds to trigger deployment. He reviewed the photographs of the Camry and opined that the significant damage was consistent with an impact force above the “no fire” threshold, contradicting the claim that the vehicle was traveling at only 5 to 10 miles per hour.

Defendants’ motion to preclude evidence and summary judgment. The Defendants sought to bar the Representative from presenting any evidence regarding the condition of the subject vehicle’s airbag system or the alleged defect. The Defendants argued that the Representative and the Decedent anticipated litigation yet failed to preserve the vehicle, thereby allowing it to be sold and destroyed. The Defendants contended this spoliation severely prejudiced their defense by depriving them of the opportunity to inspect the vehicle's physical components or download data from the ACU.

The Defendants argued that the Representative could not prove the existence of a defect and proximate cause, the essential elements of her strict liability and negligence claims. They asserted that without the vehicle or ACU data, the Representative could not present direct evidence of a defect, nor could she rely on circumstantial evidence because she could not exclude reasonable alternative causes of the airbag deployment, including prior damage, aftermarket modifications, or crash dynamics. In support, they relied on the affidavit of their expert. The Defendants also contended that the vehicle’s unavailability deprived them of the opportunity to inspect the sensors, wiring, and airbag modules that could affect deployment. They argued that without this evidence, any finding of defect would be on impermissible speculation.

Further, the Defendants noted that the Representative admitted in her deposition that she did not know what object cut the Decedent’s leg. The Defendants asserted that without the vehicle to identify the source of the alleged shrapnel, the Representative could not prove that the injury was caused by a defect in the airbag system rather than debris from the collision or another object in the vehicle.

Trial court’s order. The trial court issued a written order granting summary judgment in the Defendants’ favor. In its ruling, the court stated that the Representative could not prove a specific defect without the vehicle. The trial court also ruled that the Representative could not prove a defect circumstantially because, due to the spoliation of the vehicle, she was unable to negate reasonable secondary causes for the airbag deployment. In light of its grant of summary judgment, the trial court deemed the motion to preclude evidence moot and denied it without prejudice. The Representative filed a motion for reconsideration, arguing that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the crash should have caused the airbags to deploy, and she also presented other arguments. The trial court denied the Representative’s motion to reconsider.

Appellate court’s analysis. The appellate court first considered whether the Representative’s brief complied with Illinois law governing the form and content of an appellate brief. The court noted that there were literally no citations to any of the cases the Representative listed or citations to pages in the record in which the alleged conflicting statements may be found. The court found that the Representative did not develop cognizable substantive arguments supported by relevant legal authority. Additionally, she made allegations regarding specific defects in the presentation of the evidence without citation to the record. Despite the missing information, the court chose to address the merits of the trial court’s judgment. The appellate court noted that in a de novo review, it was not limited to the trial court’s reasoning but could affirm the judgment on any basis supported by the record.

Representative’s claims. The Representative presented two major claims of error on appeal, one regarding the sufficiency of the evidence to defeat summary judgment and the other on the caliber of her evidence. The Defendants initially responded that the Representative forfeited her arguments on appeal regarding the cause of the Decedent’s injury and death because she failed to adequately raise those issues in her motion for reconsideration.

The Representative first contended that summary judgment was improperly granted because the record contained sufficient evidence from which a jury could find in her favor without resorting to speculation. She argued that Toyota Motor Company did not prove that the vehicle needed to travel at the lower threshold of speed for the airbags to deploy, given that the accident involved another vehicle and not a solid barrier. She asserted that given the vehicle was moving slowly, the only explanation for the extreme damage to the interior of the vehicle, resulting in its total loss, was that a knee airbag on the driver’s side or a loose bolt broke. Further, she claimed that the evidence presented by Toyota’s expert witness confirmed that the bolts from a knee bolster airbag can come loose as part of a national recall on 2017 Toyota Camrys. She stated that the conflicting evidence from Toyota’s expert as to the number of vehicles affected was in direct opposition to the actual number, and one can easily infer that Toyota was unaware of the full extent of the problem.

Defendants’ arguments. The Defendants argued that expert testimony was required to establish defect and breach because airbag systems involve specialized and technical knowledge beyond the understanding of a lay jury. They asserted that the Representative disclosed no expert witness on liability and relied solely on deposition testimony from witnesses who were not qualified as experts or who expressly stated that they could not determine whether a defect existed without inspection of the vehicle. The Defendants emphasized that the only qualified witness testified that he could not render an opinion regarding the defect absent the vehicle and its stored data.

Appellate court’s opinion. The appellate court agreed with the Defendants that the Representative presented no expert testimony regarding the speed of the vehicle at the time of the collision or the functionality of the airbags. The unrefuted testimony of Toyota’s expert was that damage to the exterior of the vehicle was inconsistent with the claimed rate of speed at the time of the collision. Further, the Representative’s claim of conflicting evidence regarding the recall misrepresented the record. The expert testified that the recall involved a passenger side airbag bolt on only eight specific vehicles and was unrelated to the driver-side airbag system at issue in this case. The Representative presented no evidence that the bolts from a knee bolster airbag came loose or that the airbag system in the vehicle was defective.

The appellate court stated that it understood the Representative’s argument that she had no authority to retain possession of the vehicle following the accident and, therefore, should be excused from her inability to produce the vehicle for inspection. The appellate court noted, however, that no affidavits from the Representative’s insurer or from Toyota’s leasing agent to support her claim were included in the record. Thus, the appellate court was not persuaded that she was mandated to relinquish possession of the vehicle. Whether or not that was the case, the vehicle was not produced either to support the Representative’s claims or to allow the Defendants to defend against them. The court noted that the duty to preserve the vehicle rested with the Representative who knew or should have known that the evidence was material to a potential civil action. The court determined that the Representative sought to have the jury infer that the airbags were improperly deployed and caused the cut on the Decedent’s leg, but she did not produce competent evidence to support that conclusion.

The Representative’s second contention on appeal was that the circuit court erred by not vetting the statements supporting the Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Specifically, she argued that (1) the Defendants misled the court by stating that the only expert to testify prepared the estimate after the fact, (2) the court misconstrued her deposition testimony regarding what physically struck her husband, and (3) it could be inferred that the damaged upholstery resulted from the airbags deploying, thereby damaging human skin. The appellate court found each of the Representative’s arguments to be unsupported by the record. The appellate court found that the trial court based its judgment on the Representative’s failure to produce any competent evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to support her theories of liability.

The appellate court noted that an alleged defective product is usually more instructive to a factfinder than either photographs or oral descriptions. Other than her own recollection of what occurred at the time of the collision, the Representative produced no competent evidence to support her claims. Without the vehicle, there was no way to determine whether the airbags were defective when the vehicle left the Defendants’ control, whether the condition of the airbags was unreasonably dangerous, or whether the deployment of the airbags caused the Decedent’s injury. The court concluded that the evidentiary record lacked a triable issue of material fact regarding the essential elements to prove negligence, products liability, or breach of warranty. Thus, the appellate court found that the Representative’s case failed.

The case is No. 1-24-1210.

Judge: Cobbs, C.

Companies: Toyota Motor North America, Inc.; Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.; Toyota Motor Corp.; Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America, Inc.; Oakbrook Toyota in Westmont; Daicel Corp.

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