Doors Fly Open on Moving Sedona Minivan

Norfolk, VAAutomotive law dictates that a vehicle sold to the public is warranted to be free from safety defects. Thus when an auto defect is realized, said defect needs to be addressed should an automobile crash, or injury occur that stems from that defect.

Consider the frustration experienced by the owners of a 2005 KIA Sedona EX minivan. The EX is a higher trim level, so the owners would be forgiven for assuming they were buying something of quality.

However, it turned out in this case that the minivan was defective, and amongst the alleged defects the most alarming defect of all was the habit for the dual sliding doors located on each side of the vehicle behind the driver and front passenger doors, to slide open without warning.

The owners of the minivan, who proceeded to sue KIA under the 'Lemon Law' and were awarded $33,380 in damages by a jury, alleged that the doors would spontaneously slide open, even when the vehicle was in motion.

In a report summarizing court documents it was not revealed how fast the minivan might have been travelling when the sliding cargo doors opened without warning. Nor was it reported whether, or not the vehicle was equipped with dual power sliding doors, which are powered and hooked into the remote keyless entry system.

Thus, why the doors were spontaneously opening cannot be answered here. If the doors were power doors, then the defect would be assumed to be something in the electronic activation system for those doors. If the doors were not powered, but were manual operation only, then the problem would be assumed to lay with the handles, and clasps.

No matter. The complaint was that the side cargo doors would open, without warning, on their own. The concern for the plaintiffs, of course, was that their infant child rode in an infant car seat installed in one of the rear passenger seats. The child, therefore, was exposed to the open road when the sliding door suddenly opened.

One can imagine the terror that runs through a parent's mind when such an event occurs. Thoughts turn to the horrific carjacking story of a few years ago, whereby a woman loading groceries into her SUV with her young son strapped into the rear seat suddenly turned around to see the vehicle speed away. A carjacker, noting keys in the ignition, saw his opportunity and jumped into the SUV and took off, not realizing there was a child in the back seat strapped into a seat adjacent to a door that had been only partially closed.

Subsequent news reports highlighted the tragic details that unfolded when the carjacking suspect took a hard turn, which caused the door immediately adjacent to the child to spring open. The momentum, and force of the turn, combined with a shoulder harness that was too slack, cause the child's upper body to flop out of the vehicle, where he was caught up in the moving rear wheel. The boy suffered a quick, but horrific death.

Thankfully, such an event didn't happen here. However, the prospect of a door opening spontaneously while a vehicle is moving introduces the possibility of harm from wind, weather, or objects entering the interior space with increased velocity propelled by the moving vehicle.

It is not known to what extent the owners of the 2005 KIA Sedona, which was manufactured in Hwasung, South Korea, took the matter up with the dealer. It is also not known if the problem experienced by the owners of the 2005 Sedona was the subject of a model recall.

However, the case is demonstrative of one option in automobile law a vehicle owner has in addressing issues of quality and safety with regard to a vehicle that was purchased in good faith. Normal wear and maintenance can be expected. However, when a consumer purchases a vehicle there is an expectation that doors will stay closed when they're supposed to. Otherwise an auto defect could contribute to an automobile crash,and subsequent injury.