A report in the Detroit News states that Dr Abdullah Shamshir Abdul Mokti filed the wrongful death suit in the US District Court in Detroit, on behalf of his late wife, Dr Nida Fatin Mat Asis.
The victim, who was 29 at the time, died after a minor car crash on April 16 last year.
Shamshir is suing both Honda Motor Co Ltd and Takata Corp over the wrongful death of his wife.
According to the daily, the suit alleges that a “defective metal airbag inflator, manufactured by Takata and subsequently installed by Honda, internally ruptured … into the passenger compartment of a 2006 Honda City Car.”
“At the time of the incident, Dr Nida was unimpaired, she was properly wearing her seatbelt, and she was driving the Subject Vehicle within the posted speed limits,” the suit says.
“As a result of the incident, the Subject Vehicle’s frontal driver airbag inflator exploded internally with excessive force, which caused the metal inflator canister to rupture and expel sharp metal and plastic shrapnel towards Dr Nida.”
The victim’s husband is seeking damages for “past and future medical expenses and charges; past and future physical pain and mental anguish; past and future physical impairment; past and future disfigurement; and past lost wages and future lost wage-earning capacity.”
His lawyers filed the suit in the state of Michigan as the family had registered the estate for Nida in Oakland County, which is located northwest of the Detroit metropolitan area, according to the Detroit News.
The suit is also one of many filed in the US because the faulty inflator was made in Takata’s plant in the US state of Georgia.
Fender bender
Dr Nida’s death was one of four involving Honda vehicles last year. The other three incidents took place in May, June and September.
The second incident last year took place on May 1, in Kedah. This was followed on June 26, when a mother of two died after a fender bender involving her Honda City and another vehicle, in Kota Damansara, Selangor.
The last incident in Malaysia occurred on Sept 24 in Johor, also with the driver in a Honda City.
The circumstances were similar, in that the accidents were minor accidents but the airbags were activated, and as alleged in the case related to the lawsuit, flying shrapnel from the exploding Takata airbag inflators resulted in the death of the driver.
Previously, in July 2014, a pregnant woman was killed in Sibu, Sarawak, under the same circumstances, making it the first case outside the US. Her father later sued both Honda and Takata in the US.
There is no update as yet on the status of the suit which was part of a bigger class action suit against Honda and Takata.
16 deaths, 180 injuries
Malaysia is the only country outside the US where fatalities have occurred as a direct result of the faulty Takata airbags installed in Honda vehicles.
It was previously reported that 11 deaths had occurred in the US and with the five cases in Malaysia, a total of 16 people have died due to the faulty airbags. There have also been more than 180 injuries recorded in the US.
As a result of the deaths, Takata recalled nearly 70 milion of its inflators from car manufacturers and auto suppliers in the US.
In the US alone, about 42 million cars were recalled encompassing 34 vehicle brands, most of which were Honda, in what was one of the largest auto recall exercises ever.