BENTON – Daimler Trucks challenges Illinois jurisdiction over a complaint in U.S. district court about a bus accident that killed four Chinese tourists in Utah.
Daimler counsel Robert Adams of Kansas City, Mo. moved to dismiss the complaint on March 11, claiming none of the events in it happened in Illinois.
He argues that temporary ownership of the chassis by a Madison County business was irrelevant.
“Selling a product to an Illinois corporation does not equate to selling a product in Illinois,” Adams wrote.
Derek Brandt in the Edwardsville office of the McCune Wright firm filed the suit in February, in association with Richard McCune of Ontario, Calif.
Brandt wrote that 29 Chinese citizens traveled to Los Angeles in 2019, for a tour of national parks.
On Sept. 16, 2019, near Bryce Canyon National Park, their Embassy bus rolled over. Four passengers died and 11 suffered serious injuries.
Brandt sued three Daimler entities as designers and manufacturers of the chassis.
He sued SVO Group and Embassy Specialty Vehicles, a pair of Indiana businesses that completed the assembly of the bus.
He also sued Truck Centers Inc. of Troy, claiming Daimler sold the chassis to it for delivery to SVO Group.
He claimed defendants should have equipped the bus with a lane departure warning system and a stability control system and that they should have provided storage for luggage below the floor rather than behind the rear wheels.
He claimed the bus wasn’t crashworthy.
He claimed a substantial part of the events, acts and omissions occurred in the Southern Illinois district.
In Daimler’s motion to dismiss, Adams claims plaintiffs made no allegation with respect to Illinois except that Truck Centers was an Illinois corporation.
Adams argues that without any event actually occurring in the district, that fact could not establish venue.
He claims the chassis was delivered directly to SVO Group in Indiana.
Senior District Judge Phil Gilbert presides.