A Texas couple is suing a collision repair shop alleging that the business is responsible for the serious injuries they suffered in a car accident caused by bad repairs.
Matthew and Marcia S. of Murphy, Texas are seeking more than $1 million in their lawsuit against John Eagle Collision Center.
According to the car accident caused by bad repairs complaint, John Eagle Collision Center did not disclose repairs it had done on the 2010 Honda Fit purchased used by the plaintiffs four months before the accident.
On Dec. 21, 2013, Matthew drove the Honda Fit northbound on U.S. 281 in Burnet County, Texas with Marcia seated in the right-front passenger seat. Both had their seat belts properly fastened, according to the lawsuit.
Matthew and Marcia sustained serious injuries when another vehicle was struck theirs, the car accident caused by bad repairs lawsuit states.
After impact, the plaintiffs’ Honda caught fire and Matthew suffered serious burns while trapped inside the burning vehicle.
When the couple purchased the car in August 2013, they wanted a vehicle with no prior collisions, damage or significant repair work, the lawsuit states.
Previous repairs and body work performed by John Eagle Collision Center on the 2010 Honda Fit were not disclosed to the plaintiffs at the time they purchased the car, they allege.
A CarFax report provided to them did not contain any repair work or other damage, according to the car accident caused by bad repairs lawsuit.
After the accident, the couple say they learned that the vehicle had previously had repair work, but that there was no way they could have known this before buying the car “because of the way the work was covered up by Defendants John Eagle.”
The lawsuit states that John Eagle Collision Center, a certified body shop, has admitted under oath that the business did not repair the plaintiffs’ Honda to the manufacturer’s repair specifications and acknowledged that “if a certified body shop does not repair the vehicle to the vehicle manufacturer’s repair specifications, and then someone is seriously injured or killed because of the repair failure, that the body shop is responsible.”
The couple alleges that the repair work was done “with gross negligence, malice, intent, or actual fraud.”
The 2010 Honda Fit was originally designed to provide structural and fuel system crashworthiness protection to prevent serious injuries to occupants, according to the complaint, but John Eagle’s “defective/deficient and negligent” repairs altered the car’s structural and fuel system protection.
The defendants’ defectively attached the roof to the car, they allege, and improper work performed by John Eagle on the car’s doors resulted in structural failures that allowed fire to enter the car’s interior from below, the suit continues.
The Honda’s fuel tank was compromised in the crash “due to the altered level of structural and fuel system protection caused by the negligent repairs,” according to the car accident caused by bad repairs lawsuit.
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